When is Easter and Easter Sunday 2022? Key dates for the next UK bank holiday

Easter and surrounding holidays fall on a different date each year. Brits will have to wait more than three months for sanctioned bank holidays this year, so here’s when you’ll enjoy extended leave next

It’s a long journey, the gap between January and Easter holidays.

As the January blues set in, you might feel like the next break you’re entitled to is a long way off.

Each year, the public holidays in March or April are centered around the traditional Christian holiday of Easter. The long weekend sees families across the UK come together to share chocolate, Sunday roasts, as well as opportunistic trips to the beach and rainy spring barbecues.

It’s the first real break as the UK begins to warm up from the cold depths of the dark winter months, and also the first chance since Christmas to share time with loved ones at the same time as everyone else.

So, when is Easter and what are the dates of the public holidays this year for the occasion?

When does Easter fall in 2022?

There are no public holidays in the UK between January and Easter, except in Northern Ireland where Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March 17 every year.

In 2022, Easter will fall on Sunday April 17, which means that the surrounding public holidays are Good Friday April 15 and Easter Monday April 18.

Easter Monday is not observed as a public holiday in Scotland, but they have an extra day in January to compensate, as well as Saint Andrew’s Day on November 30.

The days off then come faster and faster as the early May bank holiday falls on May 2, followed by the inappropriately named Spring bank holiday on June 2 and an additional single bank holiday on June 3, to the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

Why are the dates of Easter changing?

Easter can be any day between March 22 and April 25. This is because it depends on the cycle of the moon and the spring equinox.

The equinoxes occur twice a year and are when the northern and southern hemispheres experience roughly the same amount of day and night as each other. The first of them occurs in the spring.

Easter comes on the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs, after the vernal equinox.

The Gregorian calendar, which we use today, was not in use at the time of Jesus’ supposed crucifixion. Easter marks the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, three days after his crucifixion in Christian tradition.

So, since we don’t know an exact date, the religion uses this method instead.