Commercial Refurbishment Costs per m² in London

Cat A, Cat B or a light refurbishment?

Before comparing a price per square foot, establish what the contractor is being asked to deliver. These describe scope. They are not interchangeable price bands.

Work type	Scope to check before comparing prices
Cat A	The agreed landlord finish and base services. Check ceilings, floors, lighting, ventilation, controls and what is excluded from the handover specification.
Cat B	The occupier’s layout and fit-out. Check partitions, meeting rooms, finishes, tea points, services changes, furniture and IT responsibilities.
Light refurbishment	Selected changes to an existing office. Identify retained items, decoration and flooring areas, repairs and any local service alterations.

The London low, medium and high bands below are whole-office fit-out categories. They should not be relabelled as Cat A, Cat B or light-refurbishment prices. We price the defined construction work from the agreed specification and access requirements.

Cat A and Cat B specification checklist · Office fit-out construction packages · Refurbishing an occupied office

Commercial refurbishment costs per square metre

To calculate a rate for a defined commercial refurbishment, divide the quoted construction total by the floor area used for that quotation. Keep the VAT basis consistent and list any furniture, IT, equipment or specialist work that is outside the total.

Check which area is being measured: the whole unit, only the refurbished rooms or a specific trade package. A floor-area rate for decorating cannot be compared directly with a rate that includes partitions, ceilings and changes to building services.

Build the budget from the work schedule

Group the agreed work into preparation and strip-out, partitions and ceilings, finishes, builders’ work for services, and site access or protection. List client purchases and separate specialist quotations alongside it. Show provisional allowances and contingency separately, so they are not mistaken for fixed prices.

What if the budget is still being developed?

Share the floor area, photographs, current and proposed layouts, finish expectations and budget range. Identify essential work and optional improvements. An early discussion can establish what needs investigation before a detailed quotation is prepared.

Explore office refurbishment Plan a restaurant or café refurbishment Explore shop and retail fit-outs

Small-office refurbishment: a worked 60 m² example

Take an illustrative 10 m × 6 m office with a 2.7 m ceiling height: 60 m² of floor area, new floor finishes, decoration and one 4 m-long partition. The schedule below shows the assumed quantities. The worked comparison then explains how material supply changes the apparent price per square metre.

Work item	Example quantity	Pricing basis to agree
Floor finishes	10 × 6 = 60 m²	Removal, preparation, new finish, skirtings and waste.
Existing wall decoration	2 × (10 + 6) × 2.7 = 86.4 m² gross	Check openings, wall condition and preparation before final measurement.
Ceiling decoration	60 m² plan area	Existing ceiling retained; repairs and access identified separately.
New partition	4 × 2.7 = 10.8 m² on one face	21.6 m² of board for one layer on each side, before openings and waste. Specify the complete system.
Other items	Separately identified	Doors, protection, site access, services changes and work by others.

Worked cost comparison: two quotations for the same office

Illustrative arithmetic only. The figures below are assumed to explain a quotation comparison; they are not market estimates, Vayton prices or the cost of a completed project. All amounts exclude any applicable VAT.

For the 60 m² office above, assume both quotations cover site setup and protection, agreed removal and preparation, floor installation and skirtings, decoration to the existing walls and ceiling, the new partition with finished and decorated faces, waste removal and final cleaning. The existing ceiling and building services remain in place. The same specification, quantities and working hours apply.

Quotation A includes the new floor covering. Quotation B leaves you to purchase that identical floor covering, with delivery and the agreed material quantity included in a separate £3,000 allowance. Both include its installation.

Cost being compared	Quotation A	Quotation B
Assumed contractor quotation	£18,000	£15,000
Floor covering purchased separately	£0 (included above)	£3,000
Comparable total for this scope	£18,000	£18,000
Comparable total ÷ 60 m²	£300/m²	£300/m²

Looking only at the contractor totals makes B appear to cost £250/m² against A’s £300/m². Once the same floor supply is included, both are £18,000 ÷ 60 m² = £300/m². A lower headline figure can simply cover less of the work.

What is outside this example?

The totals exclude new doors or glazing, replacement ceilings, structural alterations, electrical and other building-services changes, furniture, IT and equipment, professional and approval fees, hidden defects, out-of-hours working, contingency and any applicable VAT. Allow for these separately where your project needs them. The table compares the stated construction scope. It is not a complete project budget.

When does a price per square metre become misleading?

Different floor areas: dividing the same £18,000 by a whole 120 m² premises gives £150/m², although only 60 m² is being refurbished. Agree which area the price covers.
Different work packages: a refresh retaining services cannot be compared directly with a fit-out that replaces ventilation, lighting, ceilings and equipment.
Different measurement units: floor area, wall area and boarded-face area describe different quantities. The 10.8 m² partition above has 21.6 m² of board with one layer on each side.
Different assumptions: check material supply, preparation, access, working hours, waste, provisional items and VAT on the same basis. Fixed setup costs do not scale directly with floor area.

For work centred on partitions or ceilings, use our drylining cost and measurement guide and drylining and ceiling services to define that package separately.

For a real project, give each contractor the same drawings, work schedule, finish choices and access restrictions. Replace the assumed figures with written quotations, add any separate purchases once, and record exclusions and allowances before comparing totals.

A whole-office fit-out benchmark covers a different scope from this limited refresh. Our quotation follows your actual quantities, specification, supply responsibilities and site review.

Discuss a small-office refurbishment

Office fit-out benchmarks measure a different brief

Whole-office fit-out benchmarks are usually quoted per sq ft and cover a full Cat A or Cat B brief. Our office fit-out costs page has the typical London rates. Applied to a limited refurbishment of a shop, café, nursery or small office, they overstate the budget, so price the actual work instead.

What does a small refurbishment budget need to include?

If you are retaining the layout and building services, price the actual refresh: protection, surface repairs, decorating, selected flooring and any defined partition or ceiling alterations. Ask for those work packages separately. A whole-office fit-out benchmark covers a different brief and can mislead when applied to a modest refurbishment.

Keep contractor works, client-purchased items, separately appointed specialists, professional fees and your contingency visible in the cost plan. Record whether each allowance includes VAT and check for overlaps before adding the totals.

What changes the rate for shops, cafés, nurseries and salons

Each kind of premises has a few items that drive much of its rate per m². For a café or restaurant, that is usually the kitchen extraction, grease management on the drainage and wall finishes that can be washed down, as our café and restaurant refurbishment page explains. For a shop, it is the shopfront, the landlord's fit-out rules and any out-of-hours working the shopping centre requires, covered on our shop fit-out page.

In a nursery, hard-wearing finishes, safety glazing and toilets at child height add up, and the work has to fit around opening hours; our nursery refurbishment page explains how we plan it. Salons add backwash plumbing, drainage and extra sockets, covered on our salon refurbishment page. For industrial units, ceiling height, access equipment and any offices built inside the shell set the rate. Tell us the floor area and how the unit will be used, and we will say which of these apply before we price.

Same floor area, different refurbishment scope

Take three possible briefs for the same salon or small business premises. These illustrative comparisons explain why the work schedule matters more than floor area alone.

Refresh existing finishes

Retain the layout and equipment, identify local repairs and decorate agreed surfaces. Preparation, protection, working hours and the selected finish shape the quotation.

Change the room layout

New partitions or doors can affect ceilings, floors and building services. Include the connected work and the design information needed to price the complete change.

Relocate fitted equipment

Moving a backwash unit or service counter can introduce specialist connections, making good and delivery dependencies. Identify those responsibilities separately from furniture supply.

These are unpriced examples, not Vayton project case studies. A project quotation needs the actual condition, quantities, specification and access arrangements.

Explore salon refurbishment options Use the quotation comparison worksheet

Commercial refurbishment costs per m² in London

The starting condition

How much the layout changes

Specification and finish

Building services and equipment

Access, working hours and phasing

Allowances and changes

How to get a meaningful comparison

Tell us about your premises.