With schools breaking up for summer holidays this week, the holiday season is about to properly kick off. But while most kids get 6 weeks off, paid leave for employees is rarely so generous, with employers only required to offer up to 28 days of paid leave to full-time employees – and that allowance can include bank holidays.
If you’re desperate for more time off, there are a few things you can do however
How to get more holiday days:
- Move to a different country
- Search for jobs that advertise more paid leave
- Negotiate more paid leave
Move to a different country
With a minimum entitlement of 28 days of paid leave for full-time employees, the UK is one of the most generous countries when it comes to time off.
But there are a handful of countries where you can get even more time off – up to 30 days. In South America employees in Brazil and Peru are given these two extra days to put their feet up, while Madagascar and Guinea are just two African countries that also offer 30 days. Closer to home, France and Austria also offer 6 weeks of holiday a year.
On the other end of the scale are the countries that don’t guarantee any time off for employees. Sierra Leone, India, Pakistan and the USA – yes, the USA – are a handful of the countries where employees don’t have the automatic right to paid leave, so don’t assume you’ll have time for a week to cool off if job searching in these countries. Countries like Singapore (7), Nigeria (6) and Thailand (6) are also much less generous than Brits are used to.
You can see a full list of paid leave by country in our infographic below.
Search for jobs that advertise more paid leave
If a generous holiday allowance is a must, Adzuna’s advanced search function can help you out. In the ‘Matching this exact phrase’ field include phrases like ‘30 days’ or ‘30 holiday’ to find those roles that really do believe holidays can make you more productive.
And if you’re the type of person that can’t bear the idea of working on your birthday, searching for ‘birthday off’ is a must – at time of going to press there were 3,329 roles offering this little perk, including this one for a Perl Developer right here at Adzuna.
Negotiate more paid leave
Negotiations during job interviews or at annual reviews usually focus on your salary – but you may also be able to negotiate paid leave, especially if your employer insists there’s no room for a pay rise.
If you want to try and bag yourself some extra days off, begin by treating it like any salary negotiation.
Start by researching your market value – check the salary of similar roles by using Adzuna’s salary stats and upload your CV to ValueMyCV to find out what your skills and experience are worth on the job market.
If your boss or potential employer can’t meet your market rate, you could ask for other benefits – such as paid leave – to make up for the salary deficit.
Just bear in mind that if you’re interviewing for a job, appearing too keen to limit the amount of time spent working for the company might not be the best look, so save the negotiations for once you have an offer.
Full list of countries by paid leave:
