Commercial fit-out contractors in London

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; 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 five-hour overnight window. Landlord approval and licence to alter also sit in front of the work. We programme each project from the survey rather than quoting a standard duration.

We prepare and submit the drawings, specifications, method statements, insurance details and contractor documentation 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, and for a lot of our commercial work it is the only option. Shopping centre units are fitted out overnight under a nightly permit to work, 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 noise curfews so the business keeps running while the fit-out proceeds.

Yes. A single unit, a café, 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.