• Full-time employees who plan to roll over holiday will carry 5.11 days over on average
• This could cost businesses around the UK £12 billion over the next year
• Londoners plan to take the most holiday forward, with the capital’s residents hoping to roll over an average of 7.66

17 September 2020 LONDON –

Over two-thirds of full-time employees are planning to roll at least one day of annual leave into their next holiday period after a temporary law was passed by the government back in March allowing workers to carry over up to four weeks’ paid holiday.

According to personal finance comparison website finder.com, this is equivalent to 20 million UK adults if all of the workers who intend to carry over holiday are given permission to do so by their employers.

The research found that employees who plan to shift some of their annual leave to next year will roll over an average of 5.11 days, with almost 2 in 5 full-time workers (37%) intending to take in excess of 5 days over.

On average, a full-time employee gets paid £117 per day, meaning Brits who do not take all of their annual leave are essentially working an extra 5.11 days and will be losing out on £598 this year. This will even out over the next year, whereas in previous years, they would have lost out on this income if they did not use all their annual leave.

However, businesses will experience the cost of this new law during their next annual leave period when employees are working less for the same pay. This could cost businesses across the UK a total of £12 billion if all employers allow their employees who wanted to roll annual leave over to do so.

Londoners plan to carry over the most days this year, at 7.66, with 81% of full-time workers in the capital saying they intend to take at least 1 day forward.

At the other end of the scale is East Anglia, as residents here only plan to take an average of 3.87 days of annual leave into the next period. This region also has the highest number of residents that will take no leave forward, with over two-fifths (43%) of those from East Anglia saying they intend to do this.

Millennials plan to carry over the most days, with full-time workers in this generation taking an average of 5.65 days forward. While generation Z has the largest proportion of people rolling annual leave into the next period, with over three-quarters (76%) planning to do this.

Commenting on the findings, Liz Edwards, consumer advocate and editor-in-chief at finder.com:

“This temporary law will certainly have helped businesses that were under pressure in recent months – for some companies, people taking their annual leave would have left them short-staffed. This especially applies to healthcare and food businesses. However, this could be storing up issues for the future as the pandemic will still be affecting businesses over the next two years, and employees will have surplus leave that they’ll have to take at some point or be paid for it. Over the next year or two, this could be quite costly for businesses as they could experience periods when they are short-staffed.

“It’s also important to remember that many people have now been working flat out for months as they have been required to work throughout the pandemic. It’s tempting for people to delay their annual leave with the prospect of being able to go abroad next year or being able to take a longer period of time off. But that is by no means certain, and in the meantime, there’s a strong risk of burnout.

“If your plan is to carry over some leave into next year, talk to your employer at the earliest opportunity. The rules say that if it’s ‘reasonably practicable’ for you to take leave this year, then you can’t carry it over. Finding this out sooner rather than later will help you plan and make the best use of your holidays in the 15 weeks left of 2020 if you’re not entitled to roll over days.”

Methodology:
Finder commissioned OnePoll on 8-10 September to carry out a nationally representative survey of adults aged 18+. A total of 2,000 people were questioned throughout Great Britain, with representative quotas for gender, age and region.