Commercial Fit-Out London

A commercial fit-out in London turns a shop unit into a place that can trade: a cafe, restaurant, salon, clinic, fitness studio or shop. The work covers the strip-out, the shopfront and signs, the counter and service areas, floors that stand up to customers and lighting. It keeps the entrance and toilets at least as accessible as before, with a wheelchair-accessible WC where new toilets go in. Where food is served, it also covers the kitchen, its extraction and its drainage. It is a different job from an office. Your unit faces the street, so the council has a say on how it looks, and the use you plan can decide whether you need planning permission at all. Customers walk in, so access and escape are designed around the public. This page covers the buildings, stages, consents, costs and common mistakes for a customer-facing unit on a London high street or parade. Offices have a page of their own.

For London, published UK guides put refurbishing a retail space at £1,500 to £3,000 per m² and a restaurant or cafe at £2,000 to £4,500 per m², and London units usually cost more (MyBuilder, 2026). GS Renovation Ltd, a building contractor based in Potters Bar, does the work in London: our own trades do the strip-out, back of house, counter fitting and finishes, and we coordinate the shopfront, extraction, electrical and fire specialists the unit needs.

Which London units does a commercial fit-out happen in?

A commercial fit-out in London usually takes place in a ground-floor unit, often with flats above. The London Plan ranks the town centres they sit in: the West End and Knightsbridge at the top, metropolitan centres such as Croydon, Kingston and Stratford, then major and district centres, then local and neighbourhood parades. A Victorian or Edwardian shop usually has a deep, narrow plan, a timber floor over a cellar and a flat reached by its own door beside the shopfront. Interwar parades on the main roads have wider frontages, a service road behind and two floors of flats overhead. Markets and railway arches offer small units with shared services and their own landlord rules. Newer mixed-use blocks hand over a bare shell with capped drainage and a capped power supply only, often with a planning condition on the use or hours.

The unit type decides where the hard part of your job lies. In an older shop it is the floor, the cellar and the damp behind old panelling, found only once the last tenant's fit-out is stripped. Under flats it is the fire separation and the sound through the ceiling, which matter most for a cafe or a gym. In a shell unit it is the position of the drainage, since a kitchen, a salon basin or a clinic sink has to fall to a connection someone else placed. In a railway arch or market it is ventilation and condensation. We survey the unit and read the planning history before pricing, because the same counter and seating plan costs very different amounts in each of them.

How a shop or cafe fit-out runs, stage by stage

A shop or cafe fit-out runs in this order: survey and layout, consents, strip-out, drainage and first fix, shopfront, then counters, finishes and commissioning. The layout comes first, because the counter, the queue, the WC and the kitchen drainage all hang off it. Your designer or shopfitter draws the counter and display joinery, and our trades fit it to those drawings. Strip-out follows once consents allow, after an asbestos survey in any older building. Drainage goes in early, often under a broken-out floor, because a sink, gully or grease separator has to fall to the sewer connection. A wider shop window needs a new beam, designed by the structural engineer we appoint. Cutting into a wall shared with next door needs a party wall notice, which the building owner serves.

First fix brings power for fridges, coffee machines and tills, water to basins and sinks, and the duct route for the extraction. The shopfront is made and installed by a specialist we coordinate, usually near the end, once the unit is secure behind hoarding. Then come the floor, walls, ceiling, lighting, counter and fixed seating. In a cooking kitchen the extraction specialist installs and balances the canopy and fan, and a Gas Safe registered engineer connects and tests the gas, with an interlock that shuts it off if the extraction stops. The electrician tests and certifies the installation, and building control makes its final inspection. Before you open to the public, you as the responsible person under fire safety law also need a fire risk assessment for the premises.

Planning, signs and building regulations for a London commercial unit

Whether you need planning permission depends first on the use. Class E groups most shops, cafes, restaurants, clinics and gyms, so moving between them does not normally need permission unless a condition says otherwise. A small local convenience shop can be Class F.2 instead, and changing it needs permission, so check the unit's lawful use first. Hot food takeaways, pubs and bars are sui generis, so changing to one needs permission. The London Plan also resists new takeaways within 400 metres walking distance of a primary or secondary school. A new shopfront that changes how the building looks usually needs an application, judged against the council's shopfront guidance. If the building is listed, listed building consent covers works inside as well as out. An illuminated sign often needs advertisement consent, and an extract flue normally needs permission with an odour and noise assessment.

Building regulations apply whatever the planning position. A shop or cafe is covered by the Fire Safety Order, so building control needs a full plans application, not a building notice. Where the fit-out provides new toilets, Approved Document M expects at least one wheelchair-accessible unisex WC; altering an existing entrance or toilets must not leave access worse than before. Approved Document B covers fire and escape, which turn on occupancy and the separation from the flats above. Approved Document H expects a commercial kitchen to have a grease separator or another effective way of keeping fat out of the sewer. Check the lease's alteration terms too. Under CDM 2015 a business fitting out is a commercial client with its own duties, including appointing a principal designer and principal contractor where there is more than one contractor. You, your designer or your agent make the applications.

What does a commercial fit-out cost in London?

Published guides put refurbishing a retail space at £1,500 to £3,000 per square metre, and a restaurant or cafe at £2,000 to £4,500 per square metre (MyBuilder, 2026). Those are UK figures, and MyBuilder notes that London labour costs more, so it is sensible to plan on the upper part of each range. The cafe range is higher because of what a kitchen brings: extraction, gas, drainage, wipe-clean finishes and more power. For shop fitting from low to high specification, Checkatrade gives £60 to £140 per square foot (UK figures last updated May 2024). That row is per square foot, so it does not compare directly with the per square metre figures. These are indicative ranges, not a quotation, and a unit that has been empty for years, or has never been fitted out, costs more than one being refreshed.

Two component costs are worth knowing separately, because quotations often leave them out or price them vaguely. A single-bay aluminium shopfront up to about 4 metres wide costs £2,000 to £5,000 supplied and installed, including VAT where applicable (UK figure, Urban Shopfronts, 2026), before any sign, shutter or conservation-area joinery. Kitchen extraction for a cafe or small bistro, with canopy, fan, ductwork and basic odour control, runs £5,000 to £12,000 (UK figure, Fan Rescue, 2026), a specialist's early budgeting figure. Working outside trading hours, or around a neighbouring business that stays open, adds time to the programme and so to the price. We give a written, itemised quotation after a survey, with the shopfront, extraction, drainage and any WC work on their own lines so you can compare like with like.

Working on a London high street or parade

On a London parade, the street and the neighbours shape the programme as much as the drawings do. Many units have no off-street space, so deliveries come to the front within the loading rules on the road, or through a rear service road where the parade has one. Many main-road parades sit on red routes, which Transport for London runs, where stopping to unload is limited to marked bays and times. There a skip, scaffold or hoarding needs a licence from TfL; on a borough road the council issues it. Next-door businesses are still trading, so we keep their entrances clear and the pavement swept. Noisy work, such as breaking out a floor, stays inside the council's permitted hours. Noisy work outside them needs prior consent under section 61 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, so only quiet work runs after hours.

The flats above are the neighbours who feel the job most. Their entrance is usually the door beside your shopfront, and their escape route must stay open and protected every day of the work. Their floor is your ceiling, so drilling and fixing into it are planned, and the fire separation between you is checked before it is covered up. Once you trade, they will hear your music, your coffee grinder and your extract fan, which is why a cafe or gym is worth insulating against noise during the fit-out rather than after the first complaint. If you want to open by a fixed date, we plan the programme backwards from it, with the long-lead items such as the shopfront and the extraction ordered first.

Where shop and cafe fit-outs go wrong, and how to choose a contractor

The costliest mistakes in a shop or cafe fit-out are often made before the lease is signed. A tenant takes a Class E unit to run a takeaway, then learns the change needs planning permission and a nearby school counts against it. A cafe opens with a domestic cooker hood, and the council's environmental health team hears from the flats above within weeks. A new illuminated sign goes up without consent and has to come down. The kitchen drains into the sewer with no grease separator, and a blockage follows within months. A step at the entrance stays because nobody asked whether it could go, and the accessible WC is squeezed in last, with too little room to turn. Each of these costs more to put right than to plan.

When you compare contractors, ask how they would handle the parts that are specific to a customer-facing unit, not only the price per square metre. Ask who designs and installs the extraction, and whether the gas interlock is included. Ask how the drainage will fall, where the accessible WC goes, and who makes and installs the shopfront. A good quotation separates the shopfront, extraction, drainage, counter joinery, flooring, electrics and building control, so gaps are visible. Ask how they would protect the flats above, keep the residents' escape route open and keep a neighbouring shop trading. For a small unit, choose the contractor who will be on site, and ask how the building control inspections will be arranged around your opening date.

• Decoration and making good to a customer-ready finish
• Gym and fitness studio fit-outs with hard-wearing floors
• Salon, barber and beauty treatment room fit-outs

Once the commercial fit-out work in London is scoped, people usually go on to read office fit-out in London, what a main building contractor does, how snagging works at handover and Flooring Options Compared.

Why Choose GS Renovation in London

Choose GS Renovation for a London shop, cafe or clinic fit-out if you want the people who build your unit to be the people you speak to. The firm is small and founder-led: Abdelaaziz Saaid, founder and director, has over 30 years of hands-on experience. Our own trades do the strip-out, floors, joinery and decoration, and the shopfront, extraction, gas and electrical specialists work to one programme under one named point of contact. Building control is coordinated on every notifiable job, and a written quotation follows the survey. GS Renovation Ltd, company number 14611254, was incorporated in 2023, and its MyBuilder profile shows 4.9 from 31 reviews.

• One point of contact from first survey to handover
• Step-free entrance and accessible WC planned from the first drawing
• Shopfront, sign and extract consents checked before anything is ordered

Checked by Abdelaaziz Saaid, founder and director of GS Renovation Ltd (Companies House no. 14611254).