Office fit-out tenders: Cat A, Cat B, who tenders them and how to price them
Office fit-out is tendered more than almost any other kind of building work. Landlords tender Cat A to make space lettable. Occupiers tender Cat B to make it theirs. Public bodies tender both for their own estates. And the work is repeatable, well documented and usually well funded. For a contractor with the right credentials it is one of the best sectors to be in.
Cat A and Cat B
Cat A is the landlord's base build: raised floors, suspended ceilings, lighting, mechanical and electrical distribution, basic finishes, fire detection and toilets. The space is lettable but empty. Cat B is the occupier's fit-out: partitions, meeting rooms, kitchens, finishes, furniture, data, audio-visual, branding and everything that makes it an office. "Cat A plus" sits between, with some finished meeting rooms and a kitchen point to help the letting. Shell and core is the structure and envelope before Cat A.
Who tenders fit-out
- Landlords and their managing agents, via building surveyors and project managers
- Occupiers: law firms, tech companies, charities, professional services, usually with a workplace consultant or designer
- Public sector: councils, NHS, universities and government departments, on Find a Tender and through frameworks
- Developers refurbishing office buildings for re-letting
- Main contractors letting fit-out packages within larger projects
TenderPilot's Cat A fit-out and Cat B fit-out presets search the public portals and privately posted tenders, expanding the search to office fit-out, refurbishment, partitions, ceilings and the related CPV codes.
What buyers expect to see
Fit-out buyers care about programme, working in occupied buildings, and the landlord's approvals. Have ready: SSIP accreditation and Constructionline, insurance at the landlord's levels (£10 million public liability is common in multi-let buildings), case studies of similar fit-outs with photographs, your design-and-build capability for the M&E, and your process for the licence for alterations, the building's rules and out-of-hours working. Considerate Constructors registration helps in city-centre buildings.
Pricing a fit-out
Fit-out is priced from the drawings, by element and often per square foot for benchmarking. The elements: strip-out, partitions and doors, ceilings, floors and finishes, decoration, joinery, mechanical, electrical and data, fire, security and access control, furniture if included, and prelims. The risk sits in the ceiling void and the existing services: what is up there, what the landlord's Cat A actually delivered, and what the M&E consultant has assumed.
Measure the partitions, doors, ceiling and floor areas from the plans. EstiMate's AI take-off counts and measures a fit-out drawing set quickly, with the quantities tied to the sheets, and reads the specification notes so a glazed partition does not get priced as a stud wall. Then price the M&E from your subcontractor's quotations against the consultant's drawings, and make the assumptions explicit.
Prelims and programme
Fit-out prelims are higher than most people expect: out-of-hours working, goods lift bookings, protection to common parts, security, waste through a city-centre building, and a site manager who spends half the day managing the building's rules. Price them as a list, and tie the time-related items to the programme so that a two-week delay waiting for the landlord's approval has a price. Fit-out programmes are short and sequential, and the occupier's move date is immovable; your programme needs to show you understand that.
The quality answers
Buyers want to see: how you manage design coordination and the licence for alterations, your approach to working alongside the landlord's and neighbouring tenants, your commissioning and handover process (the O&M manuals and the as-builts are a contractual deliverable), and your health and safety in an occupied building. Case studies with photographs of finished spaces score, and a 360 tour of a completed fit-out scores higher.
Keep the next one in view
Fit-out tenders come in waves, usually tied to lease events. A saved search on TenderPilot for your region, and the Local applications search for change-of-use and internal alteration applications at commercial addresses, keeps the pipeline full.
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