Annual leave

The leave entitlement for full-time staff employed all year is as follows:

The number of discretionary hours (days) available to book will depend on the number of bank holidays and closure days that fall on your working days.

For part-time staff working fewer days or hours, leave entitlement is proportionate. You can calculate your pro-rata leave entitlement with our Annual Leave Calculator 2023‌. 

The annual leave entitlement for staff joining or leaving the employment of the University during the course of the year is proportionate to their completed service during the leave year. Use our Annual Leave Calculator to help you calculate these part-year entitlements.

Use our annual leave calculators to help you calculate annual leave entitlement for part-time employees and staff who join/leave mid year.‌

Annual Leave Calculator 2024

Annual Leave Calculator 2025‌

‌Annual Leave Calculator 2023

Confused by decimals in iTrent and wondering how they convert to minutes? You are not alone. Please use this guide to help you -  A guide: decimal to minutes . 

The procedure for booking annual leave in your College or Service will be explained to you by your line manager during the first week of your induction.  Staff are encouraged to book annual leave via Trent Self Service and we strongly recommend you use this system.  Your Line Manager will advise you of any changes to this procedure.  You should review your annual leave records on iTrent and report any errors to your manager and humanresources@exeter.ac.uk. This includes ensuring that your working pattern is recorded on Trent correctly as this will affect your annual leave balance.

It is not recommended that you use Trent to record your annual leave if you have no fixed working pattern and in these cases it is vital you keep a record of your annual leave so any outstanding, untaken annual leave can be paid to you if/when you leave the University. 

The timing of leave is by agreement with the relevant Manager/Head who will take into account both individual preferences and operational requirements. 

Staff in academic roles

Staff in the Education and Research and the Education and Scholarship job families will normally take their leave during University vacations. Leave will not normally be permitted during term-time. See the holidays section on the terms and conditions pages for full details.

Term-time staff

For staff working term-time only, their annual salary includes their pro-rata paid leave entitlement, to be taken on unspecified days during the vacation periods. Leave may not be taken during term-time.

To meet operational requirements, the University may require staff to work on a designated closure day, in which case alternative paid leave will be provided, to be taken by agreement with management, and no additional payment will be made. Staff in grades A to D may qualify for additional payment when they are required to work on a closure day in addition to their normal working week. 

Where attendance on a bank/public holiday is required, the University will in the first instance seek volunteers, subject to the right of the University to require staff to work on bank/public holidays to meet its operational requirements of the University where insufficient volunteers are available. Where staff are rostered to work on a bank/public holiday, the University will manage the rosters so that bank/public holiday working is evenly shared among staff. Where staff are required to work on a bank/public holiday within their normal working week, alternative paid leave will be provided, to be taken by agreement with management, and no additional payment will be made. Staff in grades A to D may qualify for additional payment when they are required to work on a bank/public holiday in addition to their normal working week.

The Bank Holiday and Christmas/New Year closure arrangements for 2024 will be as follows:

(Different arrangements for bank/public holidays may apply to staff based overseas: for more information contact globalemployment@exeter.ac.uk)

Please note, when Christmas Day falls on either a Tuesday or a Thursday, to avoid campuses being open for a single day (ie either Christmas Eve or 2 January) the University reserves the right to determine when one day of leave is to be taken.

The Bank Holiday and Christmas/New Year closure arrangements for 2025 will be as follows: 

(Different arrangements for bank/public holidays may apply to staff based overseas: for more information contact globalemployment@exeter.ac.uk) 

Reservists of the UK Armed Forces or Cadet Force Adult Volunteers are eligible for two weeks (73 hrs) of additional paid leave (pro rata for part time staff) as of 1st Jan 2024 if they are required to attend summer camps for training. This is in addition to the member of staff's normal leave entitlement.

Please see Reserve Forces and Mobilisation for additional information. 

The university will seek to provide flexibility on the timing of annual leave for university staff who are partners of Service personnel before, during and after their partner’s deployment, subject to operational requirements. The university will consider allowing the employee to take an extended period of leave (from their standard annual entitlement) and/or allow leave to be carried forward into the following year or brought forward from the following year, subject to operational requirements. Please ensure you have discussed and agreed with your manager before taking the leave. You may need to discuss this with your HR contact to ensure it is reflected in itrent.

For more information on the support offered by the university please read the Armed Forces Covenant.