Office Fit-Out Westminster

Office fit-out in Westminster covers floors in the West End and Mayfair, suites in converted townhouses, and the older commercial buildings around Paddington. The London Plan asks boroughs to keep the Central Activities Zone and other office clusters from being undermined by office to residential rights. For a tenant, the job is a strip out, partitions, ceilings, lighting, power and finishes, built to the landlord's licence and signed off by building control, whether Westminster's own District Surveyors or a registered approver.

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

The office stock a Westminster fit-out works in

Westminster's offices are a mix of modern floor plates, period houses turned into suites, and late Victorian commercial buildings. Around Paddington, Westminster's Bayswater conservation area takes in the area around the station, which the council describes as having a distinctive more commercial character with late Victorian and early 20th century buildings. Buildings of that age can have deep plans, lower ground floors and old service risers, so a fit-out starts with a survey of what the voids and fire separation really are.

Two terms shape the brief. Cat A is the landlord's base: raised floor, suspended ceiling, lighting, air conditioning and toilets, left open plan. Cat B is the tenant's layer on top: partitions and glazed screens, meeting rooms, a tea point or kitchenette, small power and data outlets, and decoration. In a townhouse suite there is often no Cat A at all, and the fit-out starts from bare rooms, fireplaces and a shared stair.

Building control for a non-structural Westminster office fit-out

A fit-out without structural work can still be building work in Westminster. The council runs its own service, the District Surveyors Building Control Service, and defines a fit out as alterations to an existing office or shop where no structural alterations take place. Partitions that change escape routes, new fire doors, accessible WCs and new lighting circuits bring in Parts B, M and L, so the job needs an application and site inspections.

Offices are covered by the Fire Safety Order, and Westminster says a building notice cannot be used where work is affected by it, so full plans is the route; a registered building control approver is the alternative. Westminster aims to contact applicants within 5 weeks with a decision on a full plans application, but says it may take longer. Painting and decorating are not notifiable and are left out of the stated cost of works. We sequence the strip out to run while the application is with the District Surveyors.

Why Westminster offices stay offices: the Class MA directions

In the parts of central Westminster that its directions cover, an office cannot become flats without a planning application, which is useful context when you sign a long lease. Westminster's Article 4 Direction removing Class E to C3 rights in the Central Activities Zone was made on 14 July 2021 and modified by the Secretary of State on 22 July 2022. As modified, it covers the International Centres of the West End and Knightsbridge, so turning an office floor there into flats needs planning permission. For addresses in the Oxford Street Development Corporation area, planning decisions now sit with the OSDC rather than Westminster City Council.

Outside the Central Activities Zone, a separate Class MA Article 4 Direction covers Westminster's town centre hierarchy; it was made on 3 December 2021 and confirmed on 5 December 2022. The London Plan backs this, asking boroughs to stop office clusters being undermined by office to residential rights. For a tenant, none of this changes the fit-out itself. It does mean the offices around you are less likely to be lost to housing under permitted development.

Occupied buildings, lease terms and CDM in Westminster

An office fit-out often happens in a building where other tenants are working, so noise is planned around them. Westminster's normal hours for noisy construction are Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm and Saturday 8am to 1pm, and noisy work outside them needs a Section 61 application at least 28 days ahead. Core drilling and strip out often go early in the programme, with quiet work such as ceilings, cabling and decoration later.

The landlord's licence for alterations comes first, with drawings the landlord's surveyor approves. We coordinate data cabling with your IT supplier so outlets and floor boxes land where the desks go. As a commercial client you have duties under the CDM Regulations, including appointing a principal designer and principal contractor where more than one contractor is involved. At lease end, dilapidations may require reinstatement, so we keep a record of what was changed.

• Reception areas and internal joinery
• Internal office signage and manifestation on glazed screens
• Cat B office layouts built onto a landlord's Cat A floor

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for all 24 statistical areas in Westminster. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Once the office fit-out work in Westminster is scoped, people usually go on to read commercial fit-out in Westminster, our Westminster area guide, builders across London, what a snagging list covers, our London office fit-out page and Flooring Options Compared.

Trusted Office Fit-Out in Westminster

Office fit-outs run on a lease start date and a landlord's rules, so we plan the work as one programme from strip out to handover. You get a written sequence showing the building control stages, the landlord's approvals, deliveries and the order of partitions, services, ceilings and finishes. Electrical work is certified by a registered electrician. We keep the landlord's surveyor informed at each stage, and we coordinate out of hours work with the building manager so neighbouring tenants can keep working.

• Photographs kept at each stage for your records
• One named contact for the landlord, the building manager and your office manager
• Office strip-out and core drilling booked outside other tenants' working hours

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