Commercial
Fit-out contractors in London for shops, cafés, clinics and offices
Shell and core, Cat A or Cat B, in a unit that is trading or empty. One site manager and one team from the demise survey to the handover pack, with a programme written against the date you have to open or occupy.
- In-house crew
Updated October 2026
A fit-out contractor turns a leased shell or a previous tenant's space into premises you can trade or work from: partitions, ceilings, floors, services, joinery and finishes, with the landlord's approvals handled along the way. MO Team is a London fit-out contractor that has delivered stores and units for Pop Mart, HEYTEA, Vibean and Herono.
What a fit-out contractor does, and what we have built
A fit-out contractor takes a leased shell, or the last tenant's space, and turns it into premises you can trade or work from: partitions, ceilings, floors, power, lighting, data, ventilation, joinery and finishes, with the landlord's approvals and the building's rules handled along the way. The three terms you will meet describe how finished the space is when you take it on. Shell and core is structure with the base services brought to the floor and nothing else. Cat A is the landlord's standard: raised floor or screed, suspended ceiling, lighting, base heating and cooling and a finished common core, but no walls and no identity. Cat B is the occupier's fit-out on top, which is where the counters, treatment rooms, meeting rooms, kitchen and brand appear. Knowing which one you are buying is the difference between comparing two prices and comparing two scopes.
MO Team is a London fit-out contractor run by Mo, who has been building since 2017, and the fit-outs we have delivered describe us better than adjectives: Pop Mart stores at the Trafford Centre, in Manchester city centre and in Oxford, the HEYTEA tea shop on Parker Street in Liverpool, Vibean Coffee in Manchester and the Herono unit on Brick Lane, plus service works at Sexy Fish in Mayfair. Shops by night, homes by day is how the company describes itself: that retail and hospitality work was built to a brand's approved design package and the landlord's fit-out guide, some of it inside trading centres. The same crew fits out shops, restaurants and cafés, clinics and offices in London, and the process is the same across all of them: survey the demise against the landlord's drawings, build to the drawings agreed for the job, obtain landlord approval and the permits, build under one site manager, and hand over a commissioned, certified space.
Two things shape a commercial programme in London more than the construction does. The first is consent: an agreement for lease sets a date, a licence to alter has to be granted before work starts, and a schedule of condition protects you at dilapidations. The second is access. Inside a trading shopping centre the work usually has to happen out of hours under the centre's permit regime, which we offer where the building requires it; in an office building it happens around other tenants, with lift bookings, protected routes and noise limits set by the borough. Having one programme owner is what keeps a programme honest through both. When the ceiling comes down and the base build is not what the drawing showed, our site manager prices the change and reprogrammes the same week. Where a project is bigger than one team can run properly, we say so at the first meeting instead of thinning ourselves across it. The sectors we fit out page sets out how the requirements differ from one to the next.
What a commercial fit-out includes
Scope depends on whether you are buying Cat A, Cat B or both. These are the elements a fit-out contract with us usually contains.
What is in the price
How it runs
- 01
Read the lease before the space
We take the agreement for lease, the landlord's fit-out guide and the demise drawings, survey the unit against them and record base-build defects in a schedule of condition before anything is agreed. The programme is written from the dates in those documents, not from a hopeful conversation.
- You receive
- A survey report, a schedule of condition and a written budget range
- 02
Drawings and landlord approval
The agreed drawings and specification submitted to the landlord's surveyor, with the contractor documentation and method statements the licence to alter requires, plus building control and any planning or advertisement consent the works need.
- You receive
- Approved drawings and the consents in place
- 03
Price and programme against the approved pack
A written quotation against the approved drawings and specification, with provisional sums stated separately so you can see which part of the figure is firm, and a programme built around the building's access rules rather than an ideal working week.
- You receive
- A written quotation and a dated programme
- 04
Fit-out on site
Permits and protection in place, then strip-out, first fix, ceilings and partitions, joinery and finishes in sequence, with a weekly report against the date you have to open and every variation priced before it is built.
- You receive
- Weekly progress reports and priced variations in writing
- 05
Commission, snag and hand over
Services commissioned and certified, a joint snagging walk with your project manager, and the handover pack assembled as a set so it is not chased after you open: certificates, as-built drawings and the operation and maintenance manual.
- You receive
- Certificates, as-built drawings and an O&M pack
What governs a commercial fit-out
Work of this kind
Common questions
Straight answers.
Not answered here?
Tell us what you are planning. We read every enquiry ourselves.
Ask us directly07424 445105A contractor who takes a commercial space from the state the landlord hands it over in to the state you can trade or work in. That covers strip-out, partitions, ceilings, floors, electrical and mechanical services, joinery, decoration and signage, and also the paperwork around them: the landlord's approval, the licence to alter, building control and the permits the building requires. A good one owns the programme and the handover pack as much as the construction.
Ask to see units they have actually delivered, and ask who was on site. Ask for a written scope against your drawings rather than a lump sum, so two quotations can be compared line by line. Ask who prepares the landlord approval package and who holds the CDM roles. Ask who will be on site each shift and who manages them, because out-of-hours programmes fail when trades do not turn up. Then ask a previous client whether the opening date held.
It is the work that makes a leased commercial space usable: partitions, ceilings, floors, lighting, power, data, ventilation, joinery and finishes. It sits between the landlord's base building and your furniture and equipment. The term covers shops, restaurants, cafés, clinics, salons, gyms and offices, which differ in their regulations and services but share the same contract and approval structure.
Cat A is the landlord's standard finish: raised floors or screed, suspended ceilings, lighting, base heating and cooling, and finished common areas, with no internal layout. Cat B is your fit-out on top of it, adding partitions, meeting rooms, joinery, branding, feature lighting and any specialist services. Landlords deliver Cat A; occupiers commission Cat B. Some deals combine them as a Cat A plus package.
It is priced from a survey and a drawing, because the same floor area can differ several times over depending on the services scope, the partition specification and the joinery. Strip-out volume, out-of-hours working and any asbestos removal are the usual surprises. Send us the demise drawings and the brief and we will price against them in writing; a firm figure follows a site visit.
Programmes are driven by three things: the size of the demise, the services scope, and what access the building allows. An empty unit with daytime access runs faster than the same unit inside a trading centre with a short out-of-hours window each night. Landlord approval and the licence to alter also sit in front of the work. We programme each project from the survey rather than quoting a standard duration.
We submit the drawings and specification, and prepare the method statements and contractor documentation, that the landlord's surveyor asks for, and we respond to their comments. The licence itself is a legal agreement between you and the landlord, so your solicitor completes it. Consent takes weeks rather than days, and we build that into the programme rather than starting without it.
Yes, where the building requires it. Shopping centre units are usually fitted out after the centre closes, under a permit to work each night, with booked dock and lift slots and agreed noise limits. In offices and clinics we work around occupied space, using protected routes, sealed working areas and the borough's noise hours, so the business keeps running while the fit-out proceeds.
Yes. A single unit, a café counter, a treatment room, a reception refresh or a tea point are all normal work for one crew, and they are often better run by a contractor of our size than by a large firm managing it at arm's length. What we do not take on is a project needing several crews on site at once; we would rather decline than run it thinly.
A building delivered with structure, envelope, cores, lifts and the main services brought to each floor, but with no ceilings, floors, lighting or internal layout. Taking a shell and core space means paying for both the Cat A and the Cat B work, which is more expensive but gives complete control over the services layout. Landlords sometimes contribute through a rent-free period or a fit-out allowance.
Fitting out a commercial space in London?
Send the demise drawings, the lease dates and what you need the space to do. We will tell you whether the programme is realistic and what it takes to hold it.