With the Easter weekend coming up, you might be wondering if you have to work the bank holidays – or whether you’ll get extra pay if you are working on Good Friday and Easter Monday.

The first step when it comes to understanding your rights at work is figuring out what your employment status is. There are three main statuses – employee, worker and self-employed. Your status depends on what actually happens when you’re at work, which might not necessarily be what your contract says. For example, if you’re an agency worker, you could be an employee, worker, or self-employed depending on your working arrangements. Get in touch using the details at the end of the article for help to understand which category you fit in to. 

Each status gives you different rights, with employees benefitting from the most legal protections. Sometimes, an employer might try to tell you that you have a status with fewer rights attached to it. If you think this is happening to you, contact us to find out how you can challenge this by raising a grievance or taking them to an employment tribunal. 

If you’re on a zero-hours contract, don’t assume you have fewer rights. On this type of contract your employment status could be a worker or employee, which means you have rights including the National Minimum Wage, holidays and holiday pay, payslips and protection from discrimination. Depending on the type of work you’re doing, you’ll usually be entitled to rest breaks during your work day and between working days as well. In addition, your employer can’t try to stop you having another job by stating in your contract that you can only work for them. 

Unfortunately, whether you have to work bank holidays is up to your employer – and they don’t automatically have to pay you more if you do. The situation varies from job to job and depends on different factors including if your workplace is open on bank holidays, the hours you work and – most importantly – what your contract says. 

If where you work opens on bank holidays, it’s likely that you’ll be asked to work some of them. Your contract should clearly state if you’re expected to work some, all or no bank holidays. Unfortunately, unless your contract says you’ll get additional pay for working a bank holiday, you’ll just be paid your normal amount. 

Your contract should also explain if the number of days holiday you can take each year is on top of bank holidays or if it includes them, meaning you’ll need to book them off if you don’t want to work them. If you get bank holidays off in addition to your annual leave entitlement, your contract might say something like ‘Your annual entitlement to holidays is 28 days plus bank holidays.’ 

Even if you do get bank holidays off in addition to your holiday entitlement for the year, this still doesn’t mean you’re entitled to take those specific days off – but you should get an additional day off instead of any bank holidays you work.  

Don’t have a contract? The default legal position is that your employer can tell you whether you can or can’t take time off. 

We know that understanding the technical language in a contract can be tricky. Contact us for more information about any of the issues mentioned or for advice on topics like sick pay entitlement or pay for being on standby.