How much have you lost this year on unused annual leave?

Last Updated on December 21, 2017 by Christian Ralph

With holiday allowances being limited, it’s mad to think that some workers opt against taking up their full allowance.

In fact, we’ve found that over six million workers in a full-time occupation failed to take up their full holiday allocation this year.

This statistic was revealed in our new survey, which further found that over a quarter (27%) of employees don’t use two full days of their annual leave each year.

Taking the UK’s national wage into account, we’ve worked out that the average British employee does an additional £216’s worth of work for free, expanding to £1,341,460,000 across the UK.

Employees working their trade in the hospitality and events management sector are the least likely to take their full holiday entitlement, with the average employee in these sectors refusing to claim six holiday days a year.

Sometimes a holiday doesn’t feel like a holiday for British employees, as the average worker squanders four days doing general life admin, and two days looking after the kids.

Over half of the 2,000 workers we surveyed admitted that they have had to use holiday days on either waiting for repair engineers, sitting in for deliveries or attending medical appointments.

Our findings also indicated that the average employee in the UK receives 25 days of valued holiday allowance and that’s not including bank holidays.

Despite this seemingly generous holiday allowance, the average employee believes that 29 days is a more reasonable allowance for the hard worker. 13% feel like they don’t get real value when taking holidays due to the disruption caused by travel plans, which forces them to take unpaid leave.

We broke down how Brits decided to use their allowance, and this included nine days on holidays and seven days over the Christmas period.

August was found to be the most popular time of year for employees to abandon their workplace and set sail abroad.

Those on the South Coast in Portsmouth and in the holiday resort of Aberystwyth are set to lose four days of holiday allowance this year, more than anywhere else in the UK.

In stark contrast to this, respondents in York, Worcester, Brighton and Gloucester were the most likely to take up their entire holiday allocation.

To enjoy a positive work-life balance, our advice is that all employees should be taking their full holiday allowance.

By doing this, it gives you the perfect opportunity to unwind and relieve any stress you feel in your job.

Featured Image Credit: iStockPhoto.com / FredFroese (Via Custard Online Marketing)