Commercial · Workplace
Office fit-out and refurbishment in London
Cat A for landlords, Cat B for occupiers, and refurbishment around people who are still working. Phased, screened, and programmed so the business does not stop.
- Fixed-price contract
- Principal contractor, CDM 2015
- In-house crew
Updated October 2026
An office fit-out in London converts a leased floor into a working workplace: partitions, ceilings, floors, lighting, power and data, meeting rooms, tea points and joinery. Landlords commission Cat A works; occupiers commission Cat B. MO Team delivers both, including office refurbishment carried out around an occupied floor.
Cat A for landlords, Cat B for occupiers
Two different clients buy office work for two different reasons. A landlord commissions Cat A works to make a floor lettable: raised floor and screed made good, suspended ceiling and lighting, base heating and cooling, finished cores, blinds, and nothing that belongs to a particular tenant. An occupier commissions Cat B to make the floor theirs: the layout, meeting rooms, breakout, tea points, storage, data, branding and acoustics. An office refurbishment sits alongside both, upgrading a floor that is already occupied without emptying it. Shops, restaurants and clinics are fitted out to a different brief, set out under commercial fit-out.
The route through is the same. We survey the floor against the landlord's drawings, submit for landlord approval and licence to alter where the work is a tenant's, then build with one crew from the drawings and specification agreed for the job, working with your designer where there is one, and hand over a commissioned floor. Where the building is occupied, the programme is designed around the occupation rather than the other way round: sealed working areas with negative pressure where dust matters, protected routes and lift bookings agreed with the building manager, noisy work confined to agreed windows, and a floor left tidy every evening. In London that also means service charge hours, out-of-hours security cover, and waste that has to leave through a specific route at a specific time.
One crew is what makes phased work survivable for the people still using the floor. A single site manager holds the sequence, so the partition trade and the ceiling trade do not both need the same corridor on the same morning, and the business gets one point of contact for the noise, the smell and the week ahead rather than four. It also gives the building manager one contractor to deal with over access, lift bookings and out-of-hours cover, which is usually the difference between a permit being granted for a Saturday and a week being lost.
What an office fit-out includes
The scope below is the usual shape of a Cat B office fit-out. A landlord Cat A package covers the base-build elements only.
What is in the price
How it runs
- 01
Survey and brief
We measure the floor, check the services capacity, the ceiling and floor voids and the structural grid, and test the layout you want against what the building will support.
- You receive
- A survey report and a feasibility view on the layout
- 02
Agree the space plan and drawings
The space plan, construction drawings and a written specification covering partitions, services, finishes and joinery are agreed for the job, with your designer where you have one, ready for landlord approval and for pricing.
- You receive
- An agreed space plan, drawings and specification
- 03
Approvals and fixed price
Landlord approval package and licence to alter submissions, building control application, and a fixed price against the approved drawings with any provisional sums stated.
- You receive
- Approvals in place and a fixed-price contract
- 04
Fit-out, phased if occupied
Construction phase plan issued, protection and access agreed, then the works in the agreed sequence. On an occupied floor, work is zoned and screened, and noisy activity is confined to agreed windows.
- You receive
- Weekly reports, a look-ahead programme and priced variations
- 05
Commission, snag and hand over
Lighting, power and ventilation commissioned and certified, a joint snagging walk, and the handover pack assembled so it is not chased after you move in.
- You receive
- Certificates, warranties and an O&M pack
What governs office work
Common questions
Straight answers.
Not answered here?
Tell us what you are planning. We read every enquiry ourselves.
Ask us directly07424 445105The cost per square metre varies several times over depending on the density of meeting rooms, the amount of glazed partitioning, whether the ceiling and floor are being replaced, and how much of the base services are reworked. A Cat A package and a Cat B fit-out are different products with different numbers. We price from a space plan and a survey; a firm figure follows a site visit.
The landlord's standard delivery of a lettable floor: raised access floor, suspended ceiling, lighting, base heating and cooling, finished common areas and blinds, with no internal layout, no branding and no tenant-specific services. It is what a viewing agent shows an occupier. Anything that makes the space belong to a particular business is Cat B and follows afterwards.
Yes, and it is part of what we do. The floor is zoned so one area is under construction while the rest works, with sealed screens, protected routes and separate access where the building allows. Noisy and disruptive work is confined to agreed windows, often early mornings, evenings or weekends, and the area is left tidy every night.
Yes. Landlord Cat A packages, common part upgrades, reinstatement works between tenancies and lighting or controls upgrades that help a building meet the minimum energy efficiency standard. Landlord work has different priorities from occupier work: lettability, a clean specification, and a floor that shows well, rather than the specific needs of one business.
It is set by floor area, the services scope and whether the floor is empty. An empty floor with daytime access runs materially faster than a phased refurbishment around staff, which can take considerably longer for the same scope because the sequence keeps the business working. Landlord approval and licence to alter also sit in front of the work.
Yes. At the end of a lease, reinstatement usually means removing partitions and joinery, making good ceilings and floors, and returning the floor to the condition the schedule of condition or the lease describes. Getting a schedule of condition taken at the start of a tenancy is what makes that argument short. We will price a reinstatement package against the schedule.
Typically new finishes, lighting and controls, reworked meeting rooms, an upgraded tea point and reception, and improved acoustics, without changing the base building. It suits an occupier part-way through a lease who needs the floor to work better rather than differently. It is usually phased, because the alternative is decanting staff for the duration.
Sealed screens rather than plastic sheeting, dust extraction at source, cutting done off the floor where possible, and negative pressure in the work zone where the dust matters most. Noisy activity such as coring, fixing to slab and demolition is scheduled outside working hours. The look-ahead programme tells you which week is which, so nobody is surprised on a Monday morning.
Fitting out or refurbishing an office?
Send the floor plan, the lease dates and your headcount. We will tell you what the floor will take and what the programme looks like.