Office Fit-Out Costs: What You Pay Per Square Foot

Cat A, Cat A plus and Cat B

Landlords deliver most offices as Cat A: raised floors, suspended ceilings, basic lighting, and a working heating and cooling system. It is a blank, usable shell. Cat B is everything that makes the space yours, from partitions and meeting rooms to reception joinery, kitchens, power layout, branding and furniture.

Cat A plus, sometimes called a fitted or plug and play suite, sits between the two. The landlord installs a generic layout so a tenant can move in quickly. If you are taking one of those, your budget is closer to a refresh than a full fit-out.

What sits inside the number

Two quotes at the same rate per square foot can describe very different jobs. Ask for the split, because the proportions tell you where the risk sits.

• ✓Mechanical and electrical: often 25 to 35 per cent of a Cat B budget once you move air conditioning, add power and re-zone lighting
• ✓Partitions and doors: glazed partitioning costs several times more than plasterboard, and acoustic ratings drive the price
• ✓Joinery: reception desks, tea points and storage walls, where bespoke manufacture replaces catalogue furniture
• ✓Finishes: flooring, decoration, acoustic rafts and wall treatments
• ✓Preliminaries and management: site set-up, welfare, programme and supervision, typically 10 to 15 per cent

The costs people forget

The items below rarely appear in an early budget, and together they can add 10 to 20 per cent to a scheme.

• ✓Dilapidations on the space you are leaving, often negotiable but rarely zero
• ✓Building management charges, out of hours access and lift bookings
• ✓Landlord licence for alterations, plus the landlord's surveyor fees
• ✓IT and AV cabling, containment and comms room works
• ✓Fire alarm and sprinkler alterations triggered by your new layout
• ✓Building control, CDM duties and the health and safety file

How to bring the number down without cheapening the space

The cheapest saving is a layout that works with the building rather than against it. Keeping partitions off the ceiling grid lines, reusing the existing air conditioning zones, and leaving the floor box positions alone can save more than any material swap.

After that, concentrate spend where people touch the building: reception, the tea point, the meeting rooms clients see. Bespoke joinery in three key places reads as a far better office than a mid-price finish spread thinly everywhere.

Programme, and why it changes the price

A 5,000 square foot Cat B fit-out usually needs six to ten weeks on site, plus four to six weeks of design, approvals and procurement before anyone lifts a tool. Compress that and you pay for it in overtime, split deliveries and premium lead time materials.

If your lease start and your trading date are close together, tell contractors at the first meeting. A realistic programme priced honestly is cheaper than an optimistic one repriced halfway through.