For keen travellers, making your days off stretch across the year can feel like an impossible task.
Summer holidays, Christmas breaks with the family, long weekends away… Before you know it, all of your annual leave has been gobbled up.
Fortunately, though, there are ways to make the most of your holiday dates in 2027 – it just takes careful planning.
There will be eight bank holidays next year, starting with New Year’s Day on January 1, Good Friday on March 26, Easter Monday on March 29, Early May day on May 3 and spring bank holiday on May 31.
August 30 marks the summer bank holiday, December 27 for Christmas Day and December 28 for Boxing Day as both fall on a weekend.
And by strategically booking off time around these bank holidays, it’s possible to maximise your annual leave, Metro reports.
It is possible to make the most of your annual leave by booking around bank holidays
Easter is up first, and with egg hunts and chocolate eating to account for, it’s worth making the most of it.
By using just four days of annual leave you can get ten days off in total.
The bank holidays fall from Friday, March 26 to Monday, March 29, so booking another four days off from March 30 to April 2 automatically gives you a nice chunk of time away from the office.
The May bank holidays also lend themselves to the luxury of a long weekend. Take April 30 or May 28 for four days off while just using up one day’s leave.
As for the summertime bank holiday, you could book off Friday, August 27 and August 31 to bag five days away for the price of two.
Christmas is worth planning strategically too.
By booking off December 24 and Wednesday 29, you could be out of the office for six days.
If you have enough annual leave to spare, you could also take December 30 and 31 as leave too – totalling to 11 days off.
Research released last year revealed which week the most people booked off during the summer holidays.
By analysing data of more than 230,000 annual leave requests for summer 2025, a study found the most popular week to book off was the week commencing August 4, with 17.51 per cent of annual leave requests submitted during this time.
The second most popular August date for holidays is the week commencing August 18, with 16.72 per cent of annual leave requests submitted.
Following in third place is the week commencing July 28.
And in fourth place, the week commencing August 11, with 16.55 per cent and 16.53 requests of annual leave put forward respectively.
