Firefighter bank holiday pay: rates, leave in lieu, examples

The eight Grey Book public holidays

The NJC Scheme of Conditions of Service (the Grey Book) gives wholetime firefighters a day’s leave on eight public holidays, subject to the exigencies of the service. South Wales Fire and Rescue Service’s wholetime procedure, which implements the Grey Book, lists them: New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, the Early May bank holiday, the Spring bank holiday, the Late Summer holiday, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Your own service’s procedure sets the local administration.

Public holidays sit alongside, not inside, annual leave. In the same South Wales procedure, firefighters to watch managers receive 25 Scale A days, 5 Scale B days and 3 days of long-service leave, and public holidays are separate. Local leave rules differ, so check yours. Because fire cover is continuous, a public holiday is often a normal working day; the entitlement then converts into pay and leave in lieu rather than a day off on the date itself.

What happens if you work a public holiday

For an employee in the role of station manager or below who is not on the flexible duty system, the South Wales procedure says the employee is paid for the hours worked on the public holiday (the payment is not pensionable) and is granted a day’s leave in lieu. Flexible-duty station managers receive one and a half days’ leave in lieu, and group and area managers receive a day’s leave in lieu. The days in lieu should be taken within twelve months, and a day in lieu means one shift off for each shift worked.

How much you are paid for the hours varies by service. Nottinghamshire’s 2026 pay policy, for instance, describes overtime paid at time and a half or double time on a public holiday, or time off in lieu at enhanced rates. Reports of the national retained-duty terms describe double the disturbance and activity payments plus a day’s leave in lieu for those below station manager. Because the enhancement is not one figure, ask your service which applies to your duty system and keep it in writing.

Worked example: a 12-hour shift on Christmas Day

A competent firefighter is on the national overtime rate of £27.65 an hour from 1 July 2026 (NJC/2/26), which is one and a half times the £18.43 basic hourly rate. Suppose they work a 12-hour day shift on Christmas Day. If the service pays the overtime rate for public-holiday hours, that is £331.80 gross; if it pays double time on the basic rate (£36.86), it is £442.32. The £110.52 difference shows why the exact local term matters.

The same firefighter would also receive a day’s leave in lieu under the procedure we reviewed, which is worth roughly a shift of ordinary pay whenever it is taken. After tax and National Insurance at a 28% marginal rate, £331.80 becomes about £239 and £442.32 about £318 in your bank. The payment is not pensionable, so no extra pension is built from it. You can test extra shifts in the overtime calculator and see how they are taxed in our overtime after tax guide.

Rota days, annual leave and sickness on a public holiday

You do not have to be working for a public holiday to matter. In the South Wales procedure, an employee who is on a rota day off, on annual leave or on maternity leave on a public holiday is granted a day’s leave in lieu, whereas an employee on sick leave on a public holiday is deemed to be on public-holiday leave and is not granted a day in lieu. Other services apply the Grey Book differently, so it is worth asking what happens to a public holiday that lands during a period of sickness.

Day-duty staff, who do not work weekends as part of their normal rota, must take leave on all eight public holidays in the same procedure, and when Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year’s Day falls on a weekend the Government’s alternative days apply to them. Shift-based staff and flexible-duty managers keep the actual dates irrespective of the alternative days. Our shift patterns guide explains the duty systems, and the shift calendar tool helps you see where public holidays fall on your rota.

Extra one-off bank holidays

When the Government announces an additional bank holiday, firefighters do not automatically gain the same entitlement. NJC Circular NJC/3/12, issued for the Diamond Jubilee bank holiday of 5 June 2012, said there was no automatic entitlement to that day under the Grey Book, but the NJC agreed to treat it as a public holiday on set terms: double time for hours worked for firefighter to station manager (not flexible duty), and one day’s time off in lieu for flexible-duty station managers to area managers.

That is a historic precedent rather than a rule for future holidays. The circular also said the agreement did not affect local agreements. If an additional national holiday is declared, look for a fresh NJC circular or a notice from your service before assuming what applies. Also note that Scotland and Northern Ireland have different bank holidays from England and Wales, and services set their own public-holiday days.

On-call firefighters and public holidays

On-call terms use the retainer, hourly rate and disturbance payment structure. From 1 July 2026 a competent on-call firefighter’s full-cover retainer is £6,054 a year, the hourly activity rate is £18.43 and the disturbance payment is £5.31 per occasion (NJC/2/26). Services describe enhanced payment for incidents on public holidays, and the retainer is normally paid regardless of the day. Ask your service how activity and disturbance payments are enhanced on those dates.

The higher-rate scenario is easy to test: a two-hour incident on a public holiday at double the £18.43 rate would pay £73.72 for the activity plus any disturbance payment, compared with £36.86 at the standard rate. Our on-call pay guide and on-call pay calculator set out how the pieces combine, and other additions to on-call pay are covered in our allowances explainer.

How to audit a bank holiday payment

Work in order: first the gross entitlement, then payroll timing, then deductions. Payroll can put an enhanced payment in a later month, so check the pay period. Tax does not explain a missing gross amount.

1. Record the date, start and finish time and whether the shift was rostered, voluntary or a recall.
2. Find your service’s public-holiday procedure and note the enhanced rate or leave in lieu it gives your role.
3. Calculate the expected gross: hours × the applicable rate (for a competent firefighter, £27.65 an hour at the national overtime rate, or £36.86 at double the basic rate).
4. Look for the line on the payslip in the expected pay period, and the next one if not.
5. Check the leave in lieu has been credited and note the 12-month window for taking it.
6. If something is missing, raise it in writing with the roster, authorisation and calculation attached.

Evidence to keep and where to escalate

Keep the roster showing the public holiday, any authorisation for extra duty, the procedure or policy text you relied on and the payslip period in which payment should have appeared. If the local procedure and the payment disagree, ask payroll and your line manager to explain the difference in writing. For a shared issue affecting a group of staff, your union representative can raise it with HR under the local consultation arrangements.

If you are planning a budget around holiday working, treat it as variable income: it is not guaranteed, is not pensionable in the procedure we reviewed and can fall in different tax months. The take-home pay calculator shows what a given extra amount is worth after deductions, and the Pay Planner helps you build a year-round view with extra duties included.

Worked example: a night shift on Easter Monday

Suppose a competent firefighter is rostered for a 14-hour night shift starting on the evening of Easter Monday, and the service treats the hours that fall on the public holiday as public-holiday working. If ten of those hours fall inside the 24-hour public holiday (midnight to midnight, as one procedure defines it), the enhanced payment applies to those ten hours only, at the rate your service uses: £27.65 an hour at the overtime rate gives £276.50, and £36.86 an hour at double the basic rate gives £368.60.

The remaining four hours would normally be ordinary duty. This is why the definition of a public holiday as a 24-hour period matters, and why you should ask how your service treats shifts that straddle midnight. If the arrangement is unclear, request a written worked example from payroll, and keep a copy for future audits.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: what differs

Bank holidays are not identical across the UK: Scotland and Northern Ireland have days that England and Wales do not, and Scottish and Northern Irish services set their own public-holiday days within local agreements. The Grey Book list in this guide comes from a Welsh service’s procedure applying the NJC scheme, so your own service’s list is the one that counts.

If you work for a service outside England and Wales, ask HR for the public-holiday schedule and the enhancement rules in writing at the start of each leave year. The payslip checker is built on the NJC scale, so use it as a sense-check rather than the final word where local terms differ.