Office fit-out costs in Ebene: what actually drives the price

Two identical floor plates in the same Ebene building can be fitted out at very different costs. The difference is rarely the finishes. It is the services, the landlord conditions and when you are allowed to work.

By Dr. Dirajen Pullay Marday, DBA, MBA, BEng, CMgr MCMI, CIWFM, MIoD - Managing Director, BFC Ltd. Published 14 August 2026.

Start with what you are being handed

The first question on any Ebene or Cyber City floor is what condition the landlord is giving you. A shell handover with a bare slab, no ceiling, capped services and a single incoming supply is a different project from a Category A space with a suspended ceiling, raised floor, sprinklers, lighting grid and fan coil units already in place. Ask specifically about the ceiling, the floor finish, the lighting, the cooling terminals, the sprinkler coverage, the incoming power capacity and the position of the risers. Every one of those either saves you a trade or adds one.

The cost blocks, in the order they usually bite

Partitioning and enclosures

Open plan is cheap. Cellular offices, meeting rooms and boardrooms are not, because each enclosure needs framing, boarding both sides, a door set and ironmongery, and then acoustic treatment if the room is used for confidential conversations. Full-height glazed partitions cost several times a plasterboard equivalent. A simple discipline saves real money: decide how many enclosed rooms you genuinely need before you look at partition systems, not after.

Ceilings, floors and finishes

If the ceiling grid and tiles exist and are in reasonable condition, keep them and replace tiles selectively. If you are installing new, remember that the ceiling is not just a finish, it is the plane that carries lighting, sprinklers, smoke detection and air terminals, so its cost is tied to the services above it. On floors, carpet tiles over a level screed is the low-cost route; large-format tile or timber-effect plank looks better and costs more in both material and setting-out labour.

Power and data

This is where budgets are most often underestimated. Every desk position needs power and data, and the containment to reach it. If the floor is solid rather than raised, that means perimeter trunking, floor boxes cut and chased into the screed, or service poles from the ceiling - and each of those routes has a different labour cost. Add the comms room: its own supply, its own cooling, cable management, patch panels and an earth. Then add the distribution board work, circuit protection, RCD provision, testing and certification. On a busy floor the electrical package is frequently the single largest line in the tender.

Cooling and ventilation

If you change the layout, you change the air distribution. Putting up walls where there were none creates rooms with a supply grille and no return path, or meeting rooms with no cooling at all. Fan coil units and grilles have to be moved or added, controls re-zoned, and condensate drainage re-routed. In our climate, cooling that is undersized for an enclosed meeting room becomes a complaint within a week of occupation, so it is worth getting the load calculation done properly rather than assuming the existing terminals will cope.

Fire, life safety and compliance

New partitions change sprinkler coverage, smoke detection zoning, emergency lighting and escape routes. These are not optional line items and they are inspected. Building them into the design at the start is far cheaper than retro-fitting after a first inspection fails.

Joinery, furniture and the last ten per cent

Reception desks, tea points, storage walls and bespoke cabinetry are where a scheme gets its character and where costs run if the design is still moving. Signage, blinds, planting, wall graphics and the snagging list are small individually and significant together. Reserve for them explicitly rather than hoping they fit in the contingency.

The Ebene-specific variables

Working in a multi-tenant Ebene or Cyber City building brings constraints that a standalone unit does not. Noisy and dusty works are usually restricted to evenings and weekends, which changes the labour rate and lengthens the programme. Deliveries go through a shared goods lift with a booking sheet, so material logistics have to be planned rather than improvised. Landlord approvals are required for anything touching the base build, and the approval cycle is part of your programme. Protection of common parts, lift interiors and lobbies is mandatory and chargeable if damaged. Finally, the lease will almost certainly carry a reinstatement obligation, so the cost of taking your fit-out out again at the end of the term should be understood before you build it in.

A worked example from our own files

On a commercial package at Ebene Junction we were asked to deal with what looked like a cosmetic problem: damaged false ceilings. The delivered scope ended up covering gypsum and false ceiling reparation, replacement of forty suspended LED light fittings, a steel cable balustrade replacement and installation of a four-leaf sliding aluminium riser door. Every one of those items touched something else - the ceiling had to be opened to reach the fittings, the riser door affected access and fire separation, the balustrade was a safety item that could not be deferred. It was priced and delivered as one package by one team, around occupied tenancies. Split across four separate contractors it would have cost more and taken longer, because each would have priced their own access, protection and out-of-hours premium separately.

How to keep control of the number

Fix the layout before tendering. Every layout change after pricing is a variation, and variations are the most expensive way to buy anything. Get a single contractor to hold the whole package where possible, so the coordination sits with them rather than with you. Insist that materials are priced at cost with labour and management shown separately, which is how we quote, because it lets you see what you are actually paying for. Ask for the exclusions in writing. And build a genuine contingency: on a fit-out inside an existing building, something behind the wall is always different from the drawing.