How Much Should a Small Business Spend on an Office Fit Out?
Smaller teams often assume fit out costs scale down neatly with floor area. In practice, some costs barely shrink at all regardless of size, which changes the per-sq-ft maths considerably for smaller projects.
There's no universal number
A 15-person team’s spend depends heavily on the starting condition of the space, how much M&E work is needed, and how much is already provided by the landlord. Two small offices of identical size can have very different budgets purely based on these starting conditions.
What changes the maths for smaller teams
Certain costs — a single meeting room’s AV setup, a kitchen fit out, core M&E infrastructure — don’t scale down proportionally with floor area. A small office can end up with a higher cost per square foot than a larger one purely because these fixed-cost elements are spread over less space.
Where small businesses get the best return
For smaller teams, spend is usually best prioritised on things employees interact with daily — good meeting room technology, comfortable furniture, and decent kitchen/breakout provision — rather than large-scale architectural statements that matter more in bigger, client-facing spaces.
Phasing spend sensibly
If budget is tight, it’s usually better to get the core infrastructure (power, data, M&E) right from the start and phase in finishing touches like additional furniture or decorative elements later, rather than compromising on the things that are expensive and disruptive to change after the fact.
