Annual Leave Purchase Scheme

To be eligible for ALPS you must have;

• completed 12 months service at 1st April 2025, and have
• a substantive contract with no end date or a fixed term contract that covers the entire annual leave year.

You will not be eligible if you are:

• Engaged on a fixed-term or temporary contracts that has an end date within the applicable annual leave year; 
• Engaged on a term time only contract; 
• A casual worker;
• Engaged on an annualised hours contract where an annual leave allowance is provided; 
• Engaged via an agency;  
• A person whose annual leave is rolled into payments, or
• Employed by a University subsidiary company

If you are not eligible for ALPS you can find out about Other Types of Leave that may be suitable for your needs.

It's a good idea to let your line manager know that you are considering applying for ALPS. Not only is this helpful for your manager to start planning, they can also let you know if your team/department or working pattern might not be able to support ALPS and the reasons why. 

Your line manager is also the first person in the approval process.

The cost of your annual leave is based on your hourly rate. We've put together a calculator to help you get an idea of what impact ALPS could have on your salary. You can find this at the bottom of the page.

You'll need the following information to input into the highlighted cells of the calculator:

• Your annual salary based on a full time contract (please use the published salary scales as at 1 March 2025).
• Your contracted weekly hours.
• The number of hours you wish to purchase.
• The total amount of any existing salary sacrifice deductions (you can find this information on your payslip). This might include nursery, childcare vouchers, USS pension contributions, Cycle Solutions or EV Car Scheme.

If you are a member of the Local Government Pension Scheme, the impact of your request on your pension deductions and accrual rate for the 12 months is shown on Tab 2 of the calculator.

Real Living Wage

Loughborough University is an accredited Real Living Wage (RLW) employer but at the time of the scheme launch, the new RLW rates have not been implemented on our published pay scales.   If you are on salary scale points 5 - 9, you will currently be in receipt of a payment in line with the Real Living Wage. The new Real Living Wage uplift announced in November is £12.60 per hour and organisations have 6 months to implement the rate. A decision on implementation of the annual uplift to the RLW will be taken in January, to apply from April 2025, which will impact on the cost estimate shown to you within the calculator.

You can complete the application form between 1 February and 28 February. The form will not be available outside of these dates.

The form captures information about your request, your line manager and your eligibility. It also makes sure that you understand how the payroll deduction works so that you are fully informed.

Annual Leave Purchase Scheme Application Form (2025)

This link will be active from 1 February 2025.

The approval stages are as follows:

• Your application form will first go to your line manager for approval. 
• Once all the applications have been received, your School/Service will review the volume of applications received.
• The applications will then be reviewed by HR Payroll to make sure that applicants do not fall below the National Minimum Wage (£12.21 per hour.)

If your application is declined at any of these stages, you will receive an email with the reasons why.

If your application is approved, you will receive an ALPS Confirmation Letter by email which will outline the details of the ALPS agreement.

This will include the cost of the leave and your new monthly salary. 

You will receive your ALPS Confirmation Letter before the 1st May 2025. If you do not wish to go ahead with the scheme you can notify HR Payroll before the 1st May to cancel the agreement.

Your purchased annual leave is added to your annual leave balance.

Your deductions will commence from 1st May 2025 until 30 April 2026. 

Requesting annual leave will follow your local existing leave booking arrangements.