If you think you’ll need additional leave this year, you might be able to buy it.
Our additional leave purchase scheme, Buy Your Leave, allows you to buy additional holiday on top of your contracted entitlement – subject to line manager’s approval - and pay for it through your salary.
Advantages of Buy Your Leave
You get the flexibility to take more time off. This could be for moving house, getting married or visiting relatives overseas.
How to apply
You can apply for additional holiday here and follow the how-to-apply instructions below.
For 2024 the window opens Thursday 1 February and closes Sunday 3 March. You will not be able to apply outside of these dates.
Application approval
Your application needs to be approved by your line manager. Without their consent, your application will be declined.
Please keep in mind that you’re not guaranteed to have your request approved. Examples of reasons for declining applications include staff shortages, impact on service delivery, holiday cover within the team, and excessive amount of untaken holiday.
Who can apply?
Buy Your Leave is open to all employees on Barnardo's terms and conditions.
It’s not open to:
- TUPE colleagues whose contracted annual leave already exceeds the maximum allowance of staff on Barnardo’s T&C (see table below)
- Employees already covered by a pre-existing arrangement for annual leave, e.g. NHS Staff
- those who, by taking part in the scheme, have their salary reduced so that it falls below the National Minimum Wage (NMW)
- those who are on a fixed term/temporary contract of less than 12 months
- those who are on probation or yet to be confirmed in post
- those who are considered as and when, contingent workers or contractors with no fixed hours
- Teachers and term time only colleagues
- those likely to leave Barnardo’s during the defined leave year i.e. under notice, or under consultation for TUPE transfer