A 480m² Cat-B office fit-out for a 42-staff regional accountancy firm relocating into a Grade A floor in Stockport town centre — 38 desks, four glazed meeting pods, a boardroom, breakout kitchen and certified Cat-6A structured cabling. Delivered in seven weeks without interrupting the firm's trading or the building's existing tenants.
A regional accountancy firm with 42 partners and staff, who had outgrown a tired 320m² floor across the borough and signed a 10-year lease on a Grade A 480m² floor in Stockport town centre. The new floor was handed over to them by the landlord at Cat-A — raised access flooring, perimeter trunking, suspended ceiling grid, base building M&E to floor — and they had seven weeks to turn it into a working office in time for the partners' end-of-quarter team meeting.
We were one of three contractors invited to tender. Our bid came in second on price by £4,200 against a competitor's leading offer. We won the work because our methodology document was the only one that explicitly costed and committed to out-of-hours noisy and dusty trades, business-continuity discipline through the firm's existing premises, and acoustic Rw testing on the meeting pod glazing as part of handover, not as a chargeable extra.
The firm took occupancy on the Monday of week eight, two days after handover. Their server room was operational, their phones were ringing, their Cat-6A cabling certification report was on the IT manager's desk, and their managing partner held the quarterly meeting in the new boardroom that Friday.
The brief came from the firm's managing partner and IT lead jointly. Priorities, in their stated order:
A seven-week Cat-B fit-out at this scale and spec is achievable but unforgiving. Every constraint had a workaround that needed planning before the keys were handed over.
The building had three other live tenants. Drilling into the slab for partition fixings, cutting raised access floor panels, structural drilling for ceiling raft suspension — all of this needed to happen outside 08:00–18:00 weekdays. The programme costed in 14 evening shifts and four weekend days from day one. No surprises, no scope creep on the landlord's complaint log.
Glazed meeting pods don't hit 38dB Rw by accident. The pod system specified used 12.7mm laminated low-iron glass, jamb gaskets at head, sill and door reveals, and an acoustic seal on every door bottom. Rw testing was done on completion of two representative pods and the boardroom — results 39, 40 and 43dB respectively, all comfortably above contracted spec.
Structured cabling to 38 workstations plus IDF locations means roughly 90 cable runs, each to be terminated, patched, labelled and channel-tested to ANSI/TIA-568.2-D. We commissioned an independent third-party tester (not our installer) on day 41 of the programme. Test report passed every channel on first measurement. Report bound and delivered to the IT lead before keys handover.
New partitions altered the existing fire strategy. The firm's fire risk assessor was engaged in week one to specify revised compartmentation and fire alarm coverage. Smoke and heat detector coverage was extended into every new pod, the boardroom and kitchen. Fire alarm commissioning report logged on day 42.
Single goods lift, shared with three other tenants. We pre-booked freight elevator slots in 2-hour windows and coordinated with the landlord's building manager weekly. Bulk material deliveries scheduled for Saturday mornings. No tenant complaints logged with the building manager during the entire programme.
The firm couldn't stop trading during the build. We coordinated with their IT provider on a phased live migration: server cabinet built and tested at week 5, file server replication started week 6, desk-by-desk migration over weekend 7. Monday morning of week 8: every staff member sat down at a working machine.
Commercial Cat-B fit-outs succeed or fail on coordination. Our entire approach was built around three governance disciplines and one technical discipline.
One programme, daily standups. The 7-week programme was reviewed every morning at 07:30 with the site manager, the M&E foreman, the partition team lead and the IT cabling supervisor. Twenty-five-minute standups, focused on the next twelve hours' interfaces. This is standard for major commercial work and rare on a fit-out of this scale — and it kept every trade on the same critical path.
Acoustic discipline from day one. Acoustic performance is not something you check at the end. The partition specifications, pod glazing system, ceiling raft positions and door seals were all chosen against an Rw target before the first stud went in. We commissioned an independent acoustician to walk the build at first fix, partition complete, and post-handover — three site visits with a written report each time.
IT segregated as a workstream. Structured cabling and the comms room were treated as a parallel workstream with their own foreman, their own programme and their own QA. The cabling install ran in lock-step with first fix M&E but was reported separately in our weekly client meeting. By week 6 the comms room was live and tested while finishing trades were still working in the open plan.
Out-of-hours costed in, not bolted on. Every contractor we tendered against costed in-hours working with vague language about "coordination with landlord" for noisy trades. We costed 14 evening shifts and four weekend days into the fixed price from the bid. No variation orders, no after-the-fact charges, no awkward conversations with the firm about the cost of fitting around their building.
Forty-nine working days from key handover to occupancy. Every workstream sequenced against a Friday evening occupancy target on day 49.
Site setup, dust-proof hoarding to lift lobby, welfare unit positioned in basement service zone. Detailed survey of existing Cat-A: floor box positions, ceiling void depth, fire alarm grid, sprinkler grid. Partition layout marked out on raised access floor. Fire risk assessor walk-around and revised strategy issued.
Metal stud framing for all partitions and pods, two layers of 12.5mm acoustic plasterboard each side with 100mm Rockwool core. Cable tray containment installed in ceiling void for both M&E and structured cabling. First evening shift on day 8 for slab fixings adjacent to occupied tenants.
First-fix electrical: small power, lighting circuits, dedicated comms room sub-circuit. First-fix data: 90 Cat-6A F/UTP runs from each desk position back to the IDF, fibre uplink between IDF and main comms cabinet. HVAC modifications: VRF indoor unit positions adjusted, new diffusers cut into existing grid.
Plasterboard taped, jointed, sanded and prepared for paint. Ecophon Solo acoustic ceiling rafts suspended at three different heights for visual interest and acoustic distribution. Aluminium glazed pod frames erected, doors hung, ready for glazing.
12.7mm laminated glass installed to all four pods plus boardroom. Acoustic seals fitted to door head, jambs and bottom. Second-fix electrical: switchplates, sockets, light fittings. Comms room cabinet built, switches and patch panels installed, fibre terminated. Independent acoustician returned for partition-complete walkthrough.
Two coats of paint to all walls and exposed ceiling areas. Carpet tiles laid across open-plan area, LVT to kitchen and breakout. Bespoke breakout kitchen installed with integrated appliances. Independent third-party Cat-6A channel certification: 90 channels tested, 90 passed at first measurement.
Furniture installed: workstations, chairs, meeting room tables, boardroom AV. Final acoustic Rw testing on two representative pods and the boardroom — results 39, 40 and 43dB respectively. Fire alarm commissioning. Snagging walk-through with the firm's facilities lead. Keys, project file, O&M manuals and certification reports handed over on Friday afternoon of day 49.
The technical detail behind a Cat-B fit-out built for client confidentiality and IT performance.
92mm metal stud, two layers 12.5mm acoustic plasterboard each side, 100mm Rockwool RW3 core. Partition Rw 50dB. All partitions taken to slab via cellular ceiling void to maintain acoustic seal.
Aluminium-framed glazed pod system, 12.7mm laminated low-iron glass, jamb seals at head and reveals, acoustic door bottoms. Tested Rw 38–43dB across 5 rooms.
Ecophon Solo Square acoustic rafts suspended at three height levels (2.7m, 2.55m, 2.4m) for tonal distribution. Total absorption coverage 42% of ceiling area. Reverberation time T60 below 0.6s in open-plan zone.
Cat-6A F/UTP shielded, 90 channel installation. Two 24-port patch panels per IDF, 10Gb fibre uplink to main comms cabinet. Channel certified to ANSI/TIA-568.2-D by independent third-party tester.
Climate-controlled comms room: dedicated 32A sub-circuit, 7kW server load capacity, N+1 split-system cooling, environmental monitoring with email alerts, 1U cable management between racks.
Revised fire compartmentation per fire risk assessment. Smoke and heat detection extended to every new pod, boardroom and kitchen. New compartmentation walls fire-rated FD30 with intumescent strips.
Recessed LED panels with PIR presence detection and daylight dimming, programmed to BS EN 12464-1 illuminance levels (500 lux at desk, 300 lux corridor). Emergency 3-hour-duration self-test luminaires throughout.
Bespoke joinery with quartz worktops, integrated dishwasher, two undercounter fridges, induction hob, combination microwave/oven, filtered water tap (mains-plumbed), commercial bean-to-cup coffee machine.
A 480m² Cat-B office fit-out delivered against a 7-week fixed-price contract with no variation orders, no business interruption to the firm's trading, no complaints logged by the building's other tenants, and a Cat-6A channel certification report that passed every cable on first measurement. The firm took occupancy on the Monday of week eight. The managing partner held the quarterly all-staff meeting in the new boardroom that Friday.
The acoustic Rw test results — 39, 40 and 43dB across the meeting rooms — comfortably exceeded the contracted spec. The firm's compliance officer signed off the fit-out as meeting their professional confidentiality obligations on day one of occupancy.
We're an accountancy firm. We don't take risks with confidentiality and we don't take risks with deadlines. Building Group's tender document was the only one that explicitly committed to out-of-hours work for the noisy trades and to independent third-party Cat-6A certification at handover. Both turned out to be exactly what we needed. The acoustic test results in the pods were better than we asked for, our IT lead had every cable certification on her desk before the keys arrived, and not a single member of staff had a working day disrupted by the move. We had the quarterly partner meeting in the new boardroom on the Friday of week one. The phrase we keep using internally is "they made it boring", and that's the highest praise we can give a contractor.
If you're moving offices, reconfiguring a floor, or refreshing a tired Cat-B environment, we'll come out for a free site visit, walk the existing space with your facilities lead and IT manager, and put a fixed-price methodology document on your desk — with out-of-hours and certification scope already costed in.
Get Your Free Quote