Annual leave guide

understand your entitlement in hours and days using the 2025 holiday calculator

Annual leave is an important benefit and staff are encouraged to book annual leave throughout the year to ensure that they are taking regular breaks from work. At LSE, full-time staff on a standard working pattern are entitled to 175 hours (25 days) annual leave, 56 hours (8 days) of bank holiday, and 56 hours (8 days) of School closure which is made up of 5 days at Christmas and 3 at Easter. This total of 287 hours (41 days) is pro-rata for part-time staff.

From 2025, holiday entitlements are expressed in hours. To understand how your entitlement is calculated, and how to book/view your holiday in MyHR, please visit the MyHR Support site.

For more details about the principles by which staff and managers should manage annual leave entitlements, please see the Use of Annual Leave Policy for Professional Services Staff. If you need help to understand your annual leave entitlement please contact your HR Adviser.

Holiday calculators

If you are joining the LSE, or leaving, you can calculate your adjusted entitlement using the following form:

Holiday Calculator 2025 - for full and part-time staff. Understand your entitlement expressed in days and hours

Holiday Calculator 2024 - Full Time

Holiday Calculator 2024 - Part Time

As most English public holidays fall on a Monday, part-time staff who, for example, don't work Mondays need to be compensated with additional annual leave to make up for the public holidays they miss.

Conversely part-time staff who normally work Mondays will receive slightly less annual leave to make up for their over-allocation public holidays. These calculators takes into account these factors and adjust your entitlement accordingly.

Public holidays & school closure days

For a table outlining the pattern of English public holidays and LSE School closure days for 2024-2026, please click here.

To understand more about how we calculate annual leave entitlements, including bank holiday and school closure day rules, please refer to the MyHR Support site.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

For a full list of annual leave FAQs, please visit the MyHR Support Sharepoint for employees and managers

Can I carry over my annual leave?

If you have not used all of your annual leave entitlement by 31 December, you can automatically carry forward up to five days’ leave into the following leave year (pro-rated if you are part-time).

Requests for exceptional carry over for 2025 can be made via this form.

Please submit your requests by 31st January 2025.

How can I submit any changes to my annual leave plans after the 6th December 2024?

This year, annual leave requests need to be in MyView by the 6th December, this is in preparation for the new HR and Payroll self-service platform, MyHR.

If you need to make changes until the launch of MyHR, please use this form.

I am a first time user of MyHR, the new HR and Payroll self-service platform

If you have not previously recorded leave on MyView (old HR and Payroll self-service platform) and wish to use MyHR in 2025 then you can complete a separate form that can be found here.

Please submit your requests by 31st January 2025.

Is the leave year the calendar year or the academic year?

The leave year is the calendar year, i.e. January - December. 

What is a reasonable amount of notice when informing my line manager of my intention to take my annual leave?

Usually it is expected that members of staff should give their line manager notice of at least twice the length of the period of leave to be taken. In some rare cases, operational reasons may necessitate that leave cannot be granted at the preferred time.

I've just started at LSE. How is my leave calculated for my first year?

Your entitlement during your first leave year is adjusted on a pro-rata basis. Your new leave year is calculated using your start date through to the 31st December. 

I'm leaving LSE. How is my final leave calculated?

Your final salary is adjusted to take into account the amount of leave you have taken during the calendar year. 

You can calculate this figure using the calculator above.