Office Fit-Out Fulham

Office fit-out in Fulham is small-scale work, and it helps to say so plainly. This is a mainly residential district, and its office space comes in small units: upper floors above shops in the town centre, studios and small professional suites around Fulham Broadway and North End Road. A fit-out here is a floor or a suite, done under a landlord's licence and a Full Plans building control application.

For Fulham, the construction part of an office fit-out is published at £70 to £120 per sq ft as a UK guide, and an all-in London office fit-out at £148 to £359 per sq ft (Oktra and Cushman and Wakefield, 2026). GS Renovation Ltd, a building contractor based in Potters Bar, does the work in Fulham: we build the office partitions, ceilings, lighting and finishes as one contract and coordinate the IT supplier and specialist trades around them.

The kind of office space a Fulham business takes

A Fulham office is usually a first or second floor above a shop, a converted studio or a small suite in a mixed building. The Local Plan names Fulham as a Major Centre in the borough's hierarchy of town centres and parades, and its upper floors above the retail frontage are where small offices are found. Access is often one shared staircase, there is rarely a goods lift, and the floor was not built with raised floors or ceiling voids in mind.

The terms landlords use still apply at this scale. A Cat A space is the landlord's shell: working lighting, heating, ceilings and floor finishes, open plan and empty. Cat B is the tenant's layout on top of it: partitions, meeting rooms, a tea point, small power at the desks and the finishes that carry the brand. In a small Fulham suite the two are often done together, so agree in writing which items the landlord pays for before any work is priced.

Full Plans, fire and access for a Fulham office

An office fit-out in Fulham that includes building work goes on a Full Plans application, not a Building Notice. The council's building control guide says premises such as offices and shops must use Full Plans because the London Fire Authority needs to be consulted. The council aims to decide a Full Plans application within 5 weeks, though it may take longer, so the drawings should be settled before partitions and doors are ordered.

Fire consultation shapes the layout more than the finishes. New partitions must not lengthen an escape route beyond what the drawings allow, glazed screens near the stair may need fire-rated glass, and emergency lighting and alarm coverage have to follow the new rooms. Part B covers that fire work, Part M covers door widths and an accessible WC where one is provided, and Part L sets the energy standard for new lighting. We build to the approved drawings and keep records of fire stopping as it goes in.

Licences, working hours and CDM duties in a Fulham building

Before a Fulham office floor is touched, the landlord's licence for alterations has to be in place, with the drawings attached. The same building often has flats or other tenants above and below, so noisy stripping out and drilling belong in the hours the council tries to hold noisy work to, 8am to 6pm on weekdays and 8am to 1pm on Saturday. Quieter tasks, such as cabling, ceiling tiles and decoration, can move to evenings where the lease allows it.

A business commissioning a fit-out is a client under the CDM Regulations and has duties of its own. It must allow enough time and money for the work to be done safely and give us the information it holds about the building, such as an asbestos survey. It must also appoint a principal designer and principal contractor where more than one contractor is involved. For a small Fulham suite this is a short set of documents, but it should be settled before the start date.

Landlord systems and leaving a Fulham office

In a building with flats or other tenants, the landlord usually owns the fire alarm, the meters and any shared heating, and recovers their upkeep through the service charge. Your fit-out connects to those systems, so ask early for the alarm zone plan, the spare electrical capacity and the asbestos survey. New detectors are normally connected by the landlord's alarm contractor, whose dates go into the programme. As context, the council says an Article 4 direction has required full planning permission for office to home conversions since 28 April 2018, so this stock is expected to stay in business use.

The end of a lease needs the same planning as the start. An office lease commonly requires the tenant to hand back the space in the condition it was taken, which can mean stripping out partitions, removing cabling back to the riser, making good ceilings and redecorating. A schedule of dilapidations from the landlord's surveyor sets out what is claimed. We price reinstatement against that schedule, and it is worth keeping photographs and drawings from the original fit-out to agree the starting point.

• Cat B office layouts built onto a landlord's Cat A floor
• Decoration and making good to a move-in standard
• Office WCs, accessible WCs and staff showers

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for all 6 statistical areas in Fulham. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Useful next reading for a office fit-out project in Fulham: commercial fit-out in Fulham, office fit-out across Hammersmith and Fulham, builders across London, how snagging works at handover, office fit-out across London and Flooring Options Compared.

The GS Renovation Difference in Fulham

An office fit-out has a fixed move-in date, a landlord to satisfy and neighbours who keep working through it. We programme strip out, partitions, ceilings, electrics, data containment for your IT supplier, tea point, WCs and decoration as one sequence, keep noisy work inside the agreed hours and leave the space secure each night. You have one contact from the day you get the keys to the day your team sits down.

• A programme built back from the date your staff move in
• Fire alarm, emergency lighting and air conditioning specialists on one programme
• Our own trades on site rather than a chain of subcontractors

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