Workers who fall ill while on holiday may be able to reclaim those days as sick leave, preserving their annual leave for another time. Under UK rules, employees cannot be treated as being on holiday and sick leave at the same time, and the government says staff can ask for holiday already booked to be changed if illness strikes before or during time off. The key point is that the illness must be serious enough that the employee would also have been off work had they been at their normal workplace.
An employment specialist explained that people can have holiday days restored if they become unwell while away, provided they follow the correct process. The entitlement depends on the nature of the illness and whether it would prevent the employee from working in their usual role. For example, the issue could not simply be a minor injury if the person would still be able to work in an office setting.
The legal position is backed by the UK government’s official guidance on taking sick leave, which says employees should notify their employer as soon as they are ill and may need to provide evidence such as a fit note. That means the request should be made promptly, rather than after returning to work, because employers are entitled to expect sickness to be reported in line with normal absence procedures. Depending on company policy, a phone call may be required rather than a text message or voicemail.
There can be a financial catch. Some workers may decide not to switch holiday to sickness absence if doing so would mean moving from normal holiday pay to statutory sick pay, which can be lower. The same basic principle is reflected in employment guidance elsewhere: statutory annual leave keeps accruing during sickness absence, and workers can either take holiday during sick leave or carry unused entitlement forward if illness stops them using it.
For statutory holiday, employees are generally entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid leave a year, which amounts to 28 days for someone working five days a week. If illness prevents a worker from taking that leave before the end of the holiday year, the law allows some unused statutory holiday to be carried over. Any extra contractual leave above the legal minimum is usually governed by the employer’s own handbook or policy. According to the government guidance, the safest course is to follow the workplace sickness procedure straight away and keep any medical evidence needed.
