Commercial decorating prices follow a formula, and once you know it, you can rough out your own budget before a single contractor visits. The method: take your floor area, apply a base rate, then run through the multipliers that fit your building and your timetable. Five minutes with a calculator gets you within striking distance of the real quotes.
Step One: Start With The Floor Area
Your lease or floor plan states it. As a working figure, a straightforward repaint of walls and ceilings prices out at £12 to £22 per square metre of floor area in London. A 200 square metre office, therefore, starts somewhere between £2,400 and £4,400 before any complications. Use the lower end for a simple open plan space with sound existing surfaces. The upper end for cellular layouts with many partition walls, doors and frames, since every wall you add puts paintable surface into the same footprint.
Step Two: Apply The Access Multiplier
Standard 2.7 metre ceilings need nothing beyond stepladders, so multiply by one and move on. Double-height receptions, atriums, exposed ceilings and stairwells require towers or powered access with IPAF licensed operators. That pushes the affected areas up by 30 to 50 per cent. Suspended ceilings cut both ways: the grid stays untouched, lowering the area, while cutting in around hundreds of tiles slows the lines.
Step Three: Apply The Occupancy Multiplier
An empty office is the cheap version. Painters work freely in daylight hours, finish faster and the formula holds. An occupied office adds the multiplier that surprises everyone: working evenings and weekends carries a premium of roughly 25 to 50 per cent, and phased work, one zone at a time with daily protection and clearance of desks, IT and flooring, stretches the programme further. Most London offices repaint out of hours anyway, because staff cannot work in a live decorating site, so budget for the premium rather than hoping around it.
Step Four: The Specification Multiplier
Standard contract matt sits at the base of the range. Offices with traffic usually justify scrubbable, durable paints, around 10 to 15 per cent more on materials and worth every penny in corridors and breakout areas. Occupied buildings need fast-drying, low-odour coatings so Monday morning smells of nothing. Add specialist lines where your building demands them: intumescent fire-rated coatings on escape routes, anti-slip floor paint, magnetic or whiteboard walls in meeting rooms, and brand colours matched precisely from your style guide.
Step Five: The Paperwork Nobody Waives
Commercial work travels with documents. Building management will demand RAMS, the risk assessments and method statements, proof of public and employer’s liability insurance, and sometimes permits for out of hours access. Established contractors produce these as routine; a domestic painter quoting for office work often cannot, which is the polite explanation for some unrealistically low bids. Add VAT at 20 per cent to everything, and if your lease ends soon, note that most commercial leases oblige tenants to redecorate under the dilapidations clause, where a planned repaint at your own price always beats the landlord’s invoice after you leave.
Running The Numbers In Practice
A worked example: 300 square metres, cellular layout, occupied, weekend working, durable spec. Take £18 per metre as the base, giving £5,400, add 35 per cent for out of hours, and the realistic budget sits near £7,300 plus VAT. Hand that arithmetic to three firms and watch how their quotes compare. Specialist commercial painters and decorators in West London will price from a site survey rather than a phone call, break the figure down by zone and phase, and tell you honestly which multipliers your building can avoid. The formula gets you to the table. The survey gets you the real number.
