St George's Day: Is today a bank holiday?

Further cementing its place as an ‘English’ day, it’s also held as the day on which William Shakespeare was born (in 1564) and died (in 1616), although as with almost everything surrounding Shakespeare’s biography, there’s no guarantee that those two dates are entirely accurate.

There have long been campaigns to see the day turned into a bank holiday - and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said in 2017 that he wanted to see four new bank holidays brought in, one for each of the UK’s patron saints.

The UK has eight bank holidays a year - and occasionally extra for one-off events such as the Coronation of King Charles in 2023 and the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee the previous year. The average number of public holidays across European Union countries is 11.

Last year, when asked whether asked whether St George’s Day would be made a bank holiday, the then leader of the Opposition Keir Starmer said: “A bank holiday would be very nice but I think that, with the economy where it is at the moment, we have to celebrate in-and-around the work that we're doing, because we need to absolutely take our country forward.

“What I want to do, if we're privileged enough to come into government, is to have a government of service to the country and have a decade of national renewal - and that would fulfil St George's Day's promise.”

And this year many people were disappointed when it was confirmed that a bank holiday would not be created for the 80th anniversary of VE Day. People across the country have been encouraged to mark Thursday, May 8 with street and garden parties decked in flags and bunting, but there is no official date in the calendar.

Scotland has its own additional bank holiday for St Andrew's Day on November 30 - or a substitute day if it falls on a weekend. Northern Ireland has two extra bank holidays to mark St Patrick's Day on March 17 and the Battle of the Boyne on July 12.

In 2022, then-Welsh Secretary Sir Robert Buckland said he would like to see St David's Day, on March 1, a holiday in Wales - but that another bank holiday should be scrapped in exchange.

The BBC reported that government modelling in 2022 put the cost of an extra bank holiday each year at £1.36bn, while accountancy firm PwC estimated the figure would be closer to £831m.

Upcoming bank holidays in the UK

• Monday, May 5 - Early May bank holiday
• Monday, May 26 - Spring bank holiday
• Monday, July 14 Battle of the Boyne / Orangemen’s Day (substitute day - Northern Ireland only)
• Monday, August 25 - Summer bank holiday
• Monday, December 1 - St Andrew’s Day (substitute day - Scotland only)
• Thursday, December 25 - Christmas Day
• Friday, December 26 - Boxing Day