EMPLOYER Share Incentive Program - shares sold / treated as income

I found myself unemployed in month 2 (May) of this tax cycle and was forced to sell all the shares in my Employer Share Incentive scheme (acquired from 2019 onwards) to be able to live until I found new employment. The GROSS sum was around £49k and I paid £12.9k in tax and £0.6k in NI from that sale via my employer. Should I include the gross sum as 'income' in my annual calculations? Year to date I have overpaid tax significantly and applied to have this repaid. It was declined.

Hi,
You can see guidance here:
Tax and Employee Share Schemes
Thank you.