What an office fit-out actually costs per square foot in Manchester

Nobody in this industry publishes prices. I've never understood it. You end up with a client who has a floor, a budget in their head, and no way of knowing whether the two are in the same postcode until they've spent three weeks getting quotes.

So here are the numbers we're working to in 2026.

The working ranges

These are all-in rates per square foot, excluding VAT and excluding furniture.

• Cat A refresh — £45 to £70 per sq ft. Ceilings, lighting, raised floor, basic M&E, decoration. Landlord specification, ready to let.
• Standard Cat B — £70 to £110 per sq ft. Partitions, meeting rooms, tea point, carpet, cabling, some joinery. What most businesses actually buy.
• High-specification Cat B — £110 to £180 per sq ft and upwards. Bespoke joinery, feature lighting, acoustic treatment, terrazzo, bespoke seating.

If someone quotes you a single figure without seeing the floor, the building's services and the landlord's licence to alter, they are guessing. It might be a good guess. It is still a guess.

What moves the number

The specification matters less than people expect. These five things matter more.

The building's existing services. A floor with good, recent M&E is a completely different job from one where the air conditioning is twenty years old and the incoming power won't take another forty desks. This is the single biggest swing, and it is invisible on a floor plan.

Whether the building is occupied. Working around a live business costs more — out-of-hours labour, phased handbacks, dust and route separation, security. It is worth every penny if the alternative is moving your staff out for three months, but it needs to be in the budget from day one, not discovered halfway through.

Ceiling height and structure. Low soffits mean services fight each other. Every clash is a variation.

Access. A city-centre floor with one goods lift and a two-hour delivery window is a different programme from a business park unit you can back a wagon up to.

How well the design is resolved before you start. This is the one clients control completely, and the one that costs them most when it goes wrong.

Where the money actually goes

On a typical £110 per sq ft Cat B, roughly:

• Mechanical and electrical — 30 to 40 per cent
• Partitions, doors and glazing — 15 per cent
• Ceilings and lighting — 12 per cent
• Flooring — 8 per cent
• Joinery and tea points — 10 per cent
• Preliminaries, management and profit — the rest

The interesting line is M&E. It is the biggest cost, it is the one clients understand least, and it is the one where a cheap quote is almost always a quote that has missed something.

The honest advice

Get a measured survey and a proper cost plan before you commit to a lease length or a fit-out budget. It costs a fraction of the job and it is the difference between a number you can hold and a number that grows.

We'll do a feasibility appraisal on any floor above £100,000 and tell you what it will really cost — including telling you when the building is wrong for you. That advice is free, and we would rather give it before you sign than after.