Office Fit-Out Old Street

Office fit-out in Old Street serves a real office market. Islington's Local Plan names Tech City around Old Street and the Clerkenwell Design Cluster among the borough's economic clusters, so the typical brief is a floor, a studio or a small suite turned over between tenants. The work is strip-out, partitions and glazed screens, ceilings, lighting and power, meeting rooms, tea points, WCs and showers, all under non-domestic building control and the landlord's licence for alterations.

For Old Street, 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 Old Street: we build the office partitions, ceilings, lighting and finishes as one contract and coordinate the IT supplier and specialist trades around them.

Office floors in Tech City around Old Street

Office work sits at the centre of Old Street's economy as the council describes it: the Local Plan names Tech City around Old Street as one of Islington's economic clusters. A typical brief might be a floor in a warehouse or a post-war commercial block changing hands between tenants. Partitions are stripped, meeting rooms rebuilt, lighting and power relaid under a raised floor or along exposed soffits, and a tea point or shower room is added. We price from the landlord's fit-out guide as well as your layout, because the lease often fixes finishes and contractors' rules.

Two terms come up in every Old Street office letting. Cat A is the landlord's base finish: a clean floor with a suspended ceiling or finished soffit, raised floor, lighting, heating and cooling, and WCs, ready for a tenant. Cat B is the tenant's fit-out on top of that: partitions and glazed screens, meeting rooms, a tea point or kitchenette, data cabling coordinated with your IT supplier, furniture power and signage inside. Settling which one you are buying, and what the landlord has already provided, is the first step, because it fixes the scope.

Landlord consent, building control and CDM for an Old Street office

Every Old Street office fit-out with building work needs full plans approval or a registered building control approver, because Islington Council says a building notice cannot be used for non-domestic properties. The drawings show means of escape and fire separation under Part B, accessible routes and WCs under Part M, and lighting and services efficiency under Part L. The council has a statutory obligation to process full plans applications within five weeks, or two months if agreed, and it issues a completion certificate once the work is done and the fees are paid.

Two other obligations run alongside. The landlord's licence for alterations is normally conditional on approved drawings and the building's fit-out rules, so it goes in together with the building control application rather than after it. As a commercial client you also carry duties of your own under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations, including passing on what you know about the building, such as its asbestos survey, and allowing enough time for the work. We prepare the construction phase plan for the works we run, and keep it on site.

Working in an occupied office building near the Old Street roundabout

An office fit-out in Old Street often happens in a building where other tenants carry on working, so noise and dust are managed as closely as the build. Islington only allows noisy construction work 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 1pm on Saturdays unless it gives prior approval, while a building manager may want core drilling and cutting kept away from office hours. Where those two clash, the noisy work either gets the council's prior approval for other times or is squeezed into a smaller daily window, and we settle which before the programme is fixed.

Deliveries around the Old Street roundabout are booked, not improvised. Glass partition panels, ceiling grid, raised floor pedestals and plant arrive in timed slots through the goods entrance, and an obstruction on City Road, a red route, needs permission from Transport for London. Where a hoist or gantry has to stand on the pavement, Islington asks for the licence application at least 10 working days in advance. Inside, we protect lifts and common parts, and fire alarm zones are isolated only with the building manager's agreement and reinstated the same day.

Office stock, Class MA and lease end in Old Street

Islington's planning policy leans towards keeping office floorspace as offices, and for a tenant that mainly means the stock stays in office use. Class MA normally lets Class E premises change to homes, but Islington made four non-immediate Article 4 Directions withdrawing that right, covering areas including the CAZ and the Kings Cross CAZ Fringe. The council's map shows which side of the CAZ boundary a building sits. Policy B3 also refuses net loss of business floorspace in the CAZ, town centres and similar areas unless the space has been vacant and continuously marketed for at least 24 months. A fit-out that keeps the office use is untouched by either rule.

At the end of an Old Street office lease the question turns to dilapidations and reinstatement. A lease commonly requires the tenant to remove its partitions, cabling and kitchen points and return the floor to the condition set out in the lease or a schedule of condition. We strip a Cat B fit-out back to the landlord's base, make good the ceilings and raised floor tiles, and give you a photographic record of the finished floor. Reading the reinstatement clause before a new fit-out starts can save a second strip-out later.

• Office WCs, accessible WCs and staff showers
• Office fit-out and refurbishment for small and medium office suites
• Strip-out of the previous tenant's office, with disposal

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Old Street & St Luke's. Counts rounded by the VOA.

If you are weighing up options for your Old Street property, it is worth reading commercial fit-out in Old Street, office fit-out across Islington, builders in Islington, building control in London, office fit-out anywhere in London and Order of Works.

Why Choose GS Renovation in Old Street

An Old Street office fit-out has a landlord, a building manager, building control and a moving date to satisfy at once. We visit, read the landlord's fit-out rules against your layout, and give a written quotation with a programme that shows when each zone is handed back. One site team runs the strip out, partitions, ceilings, services and finishes, the data cabling is coordinated with your IT supplier, and a registered electrician certifies the electrical installation. You receive the completion records for the landlord in one pack.

• Asbestos survey checked before any office ceiling, floor tile or boxing is disturbed
• Photographs kept at each stage for your records
• A programme built back from the date your staff move in

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