Cat A, Cat B and full refurbishment, delivered by one team from strip out to handover.
Fit out and refurbishment
The Lynch Brother Group is a commercial fit out contractor for Oxford and Oxfordshire, refurbishing and fitting out laboratories, offices, shops, restaurants and schools as a single main contractor. Strip out, structure, floors and decoration are delivered by our own teams to one programme, from the first survey to the day you move in. Tell us what the space needs to do and when you need it; we will come and look before we price it.
Removal of the existing fit out, services isolation and making good, sequenced so neighbouring tenants keep trading.
New openings, steelwork, mezzanines and floor strengthening, engineered to the design and built by our own site team.
Glazed and solid partitions, suspended and feature ceilings, reception desks and bespoke joinery, built to the drawings.
Liquid screed and floor preparation by our own screed teams, then the finish the space calls for, from resin to carpet tile.
Power, data, lighting, heating and ventilation, coordinated across the programme and tested before handover.
High-end decorating and tiling by our own decorators: the last trade on site, and the first thing your people notice.
Building control, fire strategy and O&M documentation handled, and a clean handover with the paperwork in your hands.
A Cat A fit out takes a shell to a lettable standard: raised floors, suspended ceilings, basic mechanical and electrical services, lighting and finishes ready for a tenant's own design. Landlords use it to bring space to market. We deliver it to a programme that keeps the letting date fixed.
A Cat B fit out makes the space yours: partitions, meeting rooms, kitchens and breakout areas, branded finishes, furniture coordination and the data and power to match. It is the work your staff and clients see every day, so the finish matters, and ours is done by our own decorators.
A full commercial refurbishment covers occupied and vacant buildings alike: phased works around a live business and out-of-hours programmes. It also takes on the structural and envelope work a tired building needs before the fit out goes in.
A fit out is usually assembled from subcontractors, each with their own programme and their own margin. Ours is not. Structure, screed and decoration are delivered by our own teams, priced by the people who will build them and run to a single programme, with one point of accountability for the lot.
That matters most on commercial projects in Oxford and across the county, where the building is often trading around the works. We plan the sequence with you: which floors close when, where the noisy work sits in the day, and how deliveries reach the site without blocking your customers.
Because screed, render and insulation and decorating and finishes are in-house, the trades that usually cause the last-minute crunch are ours to move. If the meeting-room layout changes in week six, the partitioning, screed and decoration follow-on is re-sequenced by the same site team, not renegotiated across three firms.
When the fit out is finished, the same group can look after the building: property management and planned maintenance from people who already know the site. For premises at the end of a lease, our dilapidations service puts the space back to the schedule of dilapidations.
Science & Laboratories
Lab fit out and refurbishment
Workspace & Offices
Cat A, Cat B and full building refurbishment
Retail
Shopfitting and fit outs that open on time
Hospitality
Refurbishments designed around trading hours
Education
Schools and colleges; summer works a speciality
Student Accommodation
Build and refurb, timed to the academic year
Residential Development
Multi-plot schemes, groundworks to handover
Heritage & Listed
Conservation-grade work on period buildings
How a fit out runs
Every fit out is priced and programmed from its own survey. Ask us for yours.
Main Contracting
Main contractor and design and build partner
New Build Construction
Offices, labs, education and residential development
Fit Out & Refurbishment
Cat A, Cat B and full refurbishment
Dilapidations
Strip out, repairs and making good, for tenants and landlords
Retrofit & Decarbonisation
External wall insulation, render systems and energy upgrades
Screed, Render & Insulation
Liquid screed, spray rendering and external wall insulation
Decorating & Finishes
High-end decorating and tiling — the final finish
Property Management & Maintenance
Planned maintenance for landlords and businesses
From the site office
A commercial fit out is the work that turns an empty or dated commercial space into premises a business can use. Partitions, ceilings, floors, services, finishes and furniture are installed to a design and a programme. It sits between the base build, the shell a landlord provides, and occupation. In the UK the work is usually described as Cat A, which brings a space to a lettable standard, and Cat B, which tailors it to the tenant.
The cost of an office fit out depends on the category of work, the condition of the building and the specification of the finishes. A Cat A refresh and a full Cat B with new services are very different jobs. Rather than quote a headline rate, we price every project from its own survey, so the number holds. Our guide to commercial fit out costs per square foot explains what drives the price.
The term is used two ways. In a project supply chain, tier 1 holds the client's contract and tier 2 firms deliver packages within it. More broadly, tier 2 means the regional main contractors below the national firms: big enough to act as principal contractor, close enough to the work that the directors are on site. The Lynch Brother Group works in both ways across Oxfordshire, as a regional main contractor and as a package contractor within larger schemes.
Cat A is the landlord's standard: a space brought to a lettable condition with floors, ceilings, basic services and finishes, but no layout. Cat B is the tenant's fit out on top of it: the partitions, rooms, kitchens, branding and furniture that make it a workplace. Many projects combine the two, and a full commercial refurbishment adds structural and envelope work beneath both. Our article Cat A vs Cat B: what's the difference? goes deeper.
A Cat B fit out of a single floor can run in weeks; a full refurbishment of an occupied building runs in phases over months. The programme is set at design stage and fixed with the price, and because the main trades are in-house we control the sequence rather than waiting on it. Give us your move-in date and we will work back from it.
Something else on your mind? Ask us directly.
Planning something serious — commercial, residential or a property portfolio that needs looking after? Send the outline and we'll take it from there.
