Most UK employees get 28 days’ paid leave per year. Doesn’t sound like much, does it?
What if we told you there was a way to effectively double this number? The team at Leave Dates recently shared how to maximise your annual leave in 2025 by ‘leave stacking’.
In this article, we share with you the magic of leave stacking and tell you the dates to get in your leave calendar asap for maximum R&R in 2025.
So what’s the secret?
Sadly, leave stacking does not actually involve any extra leave. Instead it’s a way of stretching your leave, booking tactical dates to extend your time off by making use of weekends and bank holidays.
Bank holidays are key to leave stacking. We get a few of these in the UK, and they’re helpfully often tagged onto the weekend, falling on a Monday or Friday. In the best examples, this means you can enjoy 16 consecutive days off using just eight days of leave (the Mon–Thurs leading up to Easter Friday, and the Tues–Fri after Easter Monday). Enough for a two-week holiday with a day either side for packing/unpacking!
If you want to be a pro leave stacker, read on for the dates to book up quickly for 2025.
Pull up the leave calendar!
Generally, the months to focus on are January, April, May, August and December. In other words, Easter, May bank hols, and Christmas/New Year. The bank holidays are slightly different for the four countries of the UK, with England & Wales having eight bank holidays in 2025, Scotland having nine, and Northern Ireland having ten. Below is the list of bank hols for each region – to stack your leave, book days off before and/or after these dates to stretch out your leave. We’ll provide an example at the end.
England & Wales
- New Year’s Day, Monday 1 January
- Good Friday, Friday 29 March
- Easter Monday, Monday 1 April
- Early May Bank Holiday, Monday 6 May
- Spring Bank Holiday, Monday 27 May
- Summer Bank Holiday, Monday 26 August
- Christmas Day, Wednesday 25 December
- Boxing Day, Thursday 26 December
Scotland
- New Year’s Day, Monday 1 January
- Tuesday 2 January
- Good Friday, Friday 29 March
- Early May Bank Holiday, Monday 6 May
- Spring Bank Holiday, Monday 27 May
- Summer Bank Holiday, Monday 5 August
- St Andrew’s Day, Monday 2 December
- Christmas Day, Wednesday 25 December
- Boxing Day, Thursday 26 December
Northern Ireland
- New Year’s Day, Monday 1 January
- St Patrick’s Day, Monday 18 March
- Good Friday, Friday 29 March
- Easter Monday, Monday 1 April
- Early May Bank Holiday, Monday 6 May
- Spring Bank Holiday, Monday 27 May
- Orangemen’s Day, Friday 12 July
- Summer Bank Holiday, Monday 26 August
- Christmas Day, Wednesday 25 December
- Boxing Day, Thursday 26 December
Example
It’s looking like a fantastic Christmas for expert leave stackers in 2025: if you book 6 days off (22nd to 24th, then 29th to 31st December), you get a very festive 13-day Christmas break. You can even go a step further, dipping into your 2026 leave to book off Friday 2nd of January 2026 and 13 days becomes 16! Skiing, anyone?!
Things to consider
Obviously this level of advanced planning doesn’t work for everyone, especially if you have other people to factor in. For some people, bank holidays are still working days and so this method of leave stacking – which assumes a Monday to Friday work pattern – won’t be much use. Even so, there can still be ways to stack your leave that suit your work pattern and lifestyle. Look for annual closure dates, study days/weeks etc and tag your leave onto those instead.
Parents are tied to school holidays, but most of these bank holidays are, helpfully, broadly in line with term breaks. Of course, this means that bookings in these weeks tend to come with that rather inflated price tag all parents know and loathe.
Fastest fingers first
The early bird catches the worm, and the key to unlocking the leave stacking magic is to act now. We suggest getting your leave requests in now – so pull up the calendar and start booking! The beach/mountains/bars/sofa await!
Author – Phil Norton
Phil is the co-founder of Leave Dates, the employee annual leave planner. He loves problem-solving and making life easier for small businesses. If you book a Leave Dates demo, he will give you a warm welcome and show you everything that you need to know.
