How much paid holiday does the UK get?

You may feel you're chained to your desk, and your children may have forgotten what you look like - but things could be worse.

According to jobs website Glassdoor, the paid leave mandated in the UK by the government is vastly better than in the US.

There, there is no compulsory paid maternity or paternity at all, just 12 weeks unpaid leave for each parent. There's no requirement for paid holiday - or even any paid sick leave.

In the UK, we're rather more fortunate - although TUC boss Frances O'Grady has warned that many of our rights on paid leave come thanks to EU legislation, and might be under threat if the UK leaves.

"If you are one of those six million workers whose holidays were improved by the working time directive you might not want to put your cross in the wrong box," she told the Guardian last month.

In the meantime, then, we'll take a look at what your basic rights on paid leave are - and how you can persuade your boss to give you a little bit more.

Paid leave

In the EU, workers are entitled to a minimum of 20 days a year on top of bank holidays, of which there are eight a year in the UK, and most people working a five-day week get this 28 days.

However, most EU countries give rather more, and we're the second least-generous: Sweden, France and Denmark offer five days more.

Parental leave

The EU minimum is 14 weeks - but here, the UK gives a great deal more. Under shared parental leave, a couple, including an adoptive couple, can share 50 weeks' parental leave and 37 weeks' pay. By contrast, Switzerland - not a member of the EU - offers nothing at all.

Sick leave

Here, the UK is the least generous EU nation, offering 28 weeks' paid leave on £88 a week. Far better to be sick in the Netherlands, where workers are allowed to take up to two years of sick leave while still getting 70% of their salary.

In fact, many UK employers give far more than they are forced to; and it may be possible to negotiate, particularly in a smaller firm.

If the extra time you want is a one-off - three months to travel the world, perhaps - you can try asking for a sabbatical. You'll need to be sure you're not too easy to replace, of course, and you'll almost certainly have to accept not being paid.

Key will be persuading the boss that things can still function while you're away, which will mean getting as much preparation done as possible. But get the arrangement in writing - otherwise you just might find that you've made yourself dispensible.

It may be harder to negotiate extra holiday if you want it to be a regular thing. For some reason, people find it far easier to accept that a colleague gets paid more than them than that they get better perks - and no company wants to provoke resentment.

Nevertheless, it can be done. Many companies, for example, will accept part-time working fairly readily, so if you plan to spread your time off out, this may be the way to pitch your request.

It's worth remembering that there are around 200 business days a year - which means that every day you take off is worth around 0.5% of your salary to your company. You'll have to be prepared to give at least this much up.

And if all else fails, there are certain careers where a large amount of paid holiday is guaranteed.

Teachers, for instance, get 13 weeks - that's 65 days excluding weekends - a year. However, there's no flexibility as to when these holidays are taken, and most end up with a fair amount of work to do during their 'time off', such as marking or preparing lessons.

There's one workplace that offers much more paid holiday, and that's the House of Commons. MPs get around 80 days a year, excluding weekends; they'll be off sooon for their three-week Easter break. While most work hard on constituency work during that time, there's nothing forcing them to do so. Just a thought...