Offices, clinics, salons, spas and retail. Partitions, ceilings, electrical, data, AC modifications, joinery, flooring and finishes with our own trades, working to the building's rules from day one.
It is worth being precise about the terms, because they determine what you are actually buying.
Shell and core is what a developer hands over: structure, external envelope, core services brought to the floor, common areas complete, and an empty floor plate. No ceiling, no partitions, no finishes.
Cat A is the base fit-out a landlord often provides: raised floor or screed, suspended ceiling, basic lighting, distributed AC, fire detection and sprinklers, and finished internal surfaces. A usable but generic space.
Cat B is the fit-out that makes it yours: partitions and rooms, meeting spaces, joinery, branded finishes, feature lighting, data infrastructure, reception, pantry, and the alterations to the base services that all of that requires.
Most of the work we do is Cat B: taking a floor or a unit that is either bare or generic and turning it into a working office, clinic, salon or shop. We also do refurbishments of occupied spaces, reconfigurations where a business has outgrown its layout, and dilapidation works when a lease ends, meaning stripping the space back to the condition the lease requires you to hand it back in.
Our scope on a typical job: demolition and strip-out, partitions, ceilings, doors, electrical and data, lighting, AC modification, plumbing and drainage where required, joinery, flooring, decoration, signage installation, and handover.
Related trades on our books: carpentry and joinery, flooring installation, painting, lighting installation, electrician, MEP contractor, media wall and snagging inspection for handover.
Fit out companies in Dubai divide roughly three ways: design studios that draw the scheme and appoint somebody else to build it, main contractors who subcontract every trade, and firms that hold their own trades and build what has been approved. We are the third. As an interior fit out company we do the construction with our own people, working to a consultant's approved drawings rather than producing them.
What we take on: full Cat B fit-outs of bare or Cat A space, refurbishment of a space you already occupy, reconfiguration where a business has outgrown its layout, and dilapidation works at lease end. Job sizes run from a single retail unit or a clinic room up to a full commercial floor. Commercial fit out is the whole of what this page covers, not a sideline to residential work.
Where we stop is worth saying as plainly. We do not prepare or submit the design and authority drawings, and we do not sign off approvals that belong to a consultant or to the building. If you do not have a consultant, we will say so at the first visit and tell you roughly what appointing one adds to the programme, rather than starting and discovering it later.
The design decisions that drive an office fit-out are the ones about how the business actually works. An office renovation of a floor you already occupy runs on the same decisions, with the added constraint that the team is working in it throughout, and that constraint is what an office renovation contractor is really judged on.
Open plan against enclosed. Every enclosed room takes floor area, needs its own lighting and AC provision, and needs acoustic separation. The right number of them is a function of how the team works, not of a template. What we ask about is how many people need to take calls without disturbing others, how many meetings run concurrently, and whether anyone needs an office for confidentiality reasons.
Meeting rooms. Sized honestly. A four-person room used constantly beats a twelve-person boardroom used monthly. Every meeting room needs acoustic performance in the partitions and the ceiling, a screen with power and data behind it, lighting that works for video calls rather than against them, and enough AC provision for a full room.
Reception. The first thing a client sees and the piece of joinery that carries the brand. It needs power, data, a screen or signage, and enough storage that it does not become a clutter shelf.
Pantry or tea point. Water supply and drainage, which is the constraint that decides where it can go. In many towers the tea point has to sit near an existing wet stack unless you are prepared to build up floor levels for a drainage run.
Server or comms room. Small, but it needs dedicated cooling, dedicated power, containment for the cabling and enough space to open a rack. Undersized comms rooms are one of the more common regrets.
Storage. Almost always underestimated. Filing, stationery, IT equipment, deliveries, cleaning materials and coats all need somewhere, and if they do not have somewhere they end up in the meeting room.
Acoustics. The most common complaint in a completed Dubai office, and it is designed in or not at all. Partitions taken to the slab rather than stopping at the ceiling grid, insulation in the stud, acoustic ceiling tiles, and soft finishes on floors all contribute.
Clinics and medical facilities carry a layer of approval on top of the building's, and that layer governs the layout, the finishes and the services. The room sizes, the circulation, the surface specifications, the hand-wash provision, the ventilation and the waste arrangements all have to be designed to what the licensing process will accept, usually with a consultant preparing and submitting the drawings.
Our role is the construction: we build to the approved drawings and the consultant's specification, and we do not improvise on anything that has been approved.
What that involves in practice:
The sequencing point that matters: changes made on site to an approved clinic layout can invalidate the approval. If something does not work, it goes back to the consultant before it gets built, not after.
Salons are services-heavy for their size, which is why they are more complex to fit out than their floor area suggests.
Water and drainage dominate the layout. Wash stations need hot and cold supply and drainage, and drainage is the hard part: waste has to fall to an existing point, which in a tower unit constrains where the wash area can be. Pedicure stations, treatment rooms with showers and steam or sauna rooms each add their own supply and drainage requirements. Getting this wrong is the single most expensive salon mistake, because it is not correctable without breaking up floors.
Power. Dryers, styling tools, treatment equipment and laundry all draw heavily and are used simultaneously. Each station needs its own provision, positioned where the stylist actually stands, and the incoming supply has to carry the total.
Ventilation and extract. Chemical services, nail treatment stations and colour rooms need real extract, not a token fan. This is a comfort issue for clients and a working-conditions issue for staff who are in the space all day.
Wet-area construction. Tanking, falls to drains, sealed junctions and correctly specified tiling in every wet area. A salon leaking into the unit below is a business-stopping problem.
Joinery and finishes. Reception, retail display, styling stations, mirrors with integrated lighting, storage for stock and towels, laundry housing, and treatment room furniture. Lighting deserves particular attention: colour rendering matters in a salon in a way it does not in an office, because clients judge the result under it.
A shop fit out runs to the landlord's programme, and in a mall that programme is usually strict.
Mall units typically involve a design submitted to and approved by the mall's fit-out team, an appointed or approved contractor list, a fit-out deposit, defined working hours that are frequently overnight, controlled access through service corridors, and a hard opening date. The shopfront, signage, lighting levels and even the hoarding during construction are usually specified by the mall.
Street-facing units give more freedom on the shopfront and less on hours, since the neighbours are residents or other businesses.
What a retail fit-out involves: shopfront and entrance, floor and wall finishes designed for heavy footfall, lighting designed around the merchandise rather than as general illumination, fixed and loose display joinery, cash desk with power, data and security provision, fitting rooms where they apply, stockroom and back-of-house (including cold rooms and walk-in freezers where the unit sells fresh product), staff facilities, security shutters and system provision, and signage installation.
Lighting is the thing worth spending on in retail. Merchandise lighting (accent, colour temperature, beam control) does more for a shop than any other single element of the fit-out.
Real joinery, workspace, reception and display work from commercial fit-out projects.
This is the section that determines your start date, and it is where projects lose time before a single wall goes up.
The building's own process. Almost every commercial building in Dubai has a fit-out guide setting out what it requires: drawings for approval, an appointed or approved contractor, insurance certificates, a fit-out deposit or bond, work permits, working hours, access and lift arrangements, waste removal rules and reinstatement conditions at lease end. The rules differ between a mainland commercial tower, a free-zone building and a mall, and each of them will apply its own process regardless of what the others do.
Authority approvals. Depending on where the unit sits and what activity it is licensed for, the approval route above the building can differ. Free zones typically administer approvals for their own buildings; mainland premises follow a different route; and regulated activities such as clinics add a further approval of their own. This is normally handled by a consultant preparing and submitting the drawings.
What we do. We build to approved drawings, we provide the contractor documentation buildings ask for (insurance certificates, method statements, risk assessments, crew details and permit applications), and we coordinate with building management on access, lifts, working hours and waste. We are a contractor working under a DEWA-enrolled electrical scope, which is what allows the electrical work to proceed and is often a condition of getting on site.
What we ask of you. Start the approval process early and treat the approved drawing as fixed. The most expensive changes in any fit-out are the ones made after approval, because they cost the build time, the re-approval time, and the rent for both.
Fit-outs are the part of a Dubai project most exposed to approvals, and the approving body depends on the land rather than the district. Dubai Municipality is the default where no zone instrument applies. Trakhees governs Nakheel-owned land and specified zones. DDA governs its own zones. RERA registers projects and developers. Free zones such as JAFZA run a parallel route. Boundaries have moved over the years, so we confirm the authority from the property documents — the title deed, the Ejari tenancy contract or the Makani number — rather than assuming it from the address.
DEWA connections, meter applications and energisation sit on their own timeline and are usually the longest lead item on the programme. We start them first, not last.
In an apartment or a tower, the owners association or management company decides access, working hours, the service lift and the deposit before any authority is involved. That layer is often the one that actually sets your start date. Where a tower is served by Empower or Emicool district cooling, extra cooling capacity is a request to the provider with its own approval and BTU metering.
Ramadan and the summer midday break both compress site hours; we plan the programme around them rather than pretending they will not happen.
Partitions. Metal stud and plasterboard is the standard: fast, flexible and adjustable. The performance decisions are how far the partition goes up (to the underside of the ceiling grid, or to the slab, which is what actually gives acoustic separation), how much insulation goes in the stud, and whether a double layer of board is needed. Blockwork is used where fire separation, security or a wet area demands it.
Glass partitions, single or double glazed, framed or frameless, give light and openness, and they are the most common upgrade in a Dubai office. Double glazing gives useful acoustic performance. Manifestation, the eye-level markings that stop people walking into the glass, is needed on full-height panels, and integrated blinds are worth deciding on before the units are ordered.
Demountable systems cost more up front and are worth it where the layout is genuinely likely to change.
Ceilings. What most people here call a false ceiling is the suspended ceiling hung below the slab, and there are three usual answers. Mineral fibre tile in an exposed grid is standard, accessible for maintenance and acoustically useful. A gypsum false ceiling gives clean, flush surfaces, bulkheads and feature detail, at the cost of access, which is why a gypsum ceiling needs its access panels planned on the drawing rather than cut in afterwards. Open or exposed ceilings suit some brands and mean all the services above are now visible and have to be arranged to be looked at.
The coordination problem. The ceiling is where the sprinklers, smoke detectors, AC supply and return grilles, light fittings, speakers, access panels and any signage all have to coexist, and the sprinkler and detection layouts have to satisfy the coverage requirements for the new room layout, not the old one. Coordinating that on a drawing before installation is what separates a fit-out that looks deliberate from one where every ceiling tile has a different service cut into it at a slightly wrong spacing.
Doors. Solid core doors with proper ironmongery for offices and meeting rooms; glass doors for glazed partitions; rated door sets where the building requires them, matched as complete certified assemblies; and access control provision designed in with power and data at the frame rather than surface-run afterwards.
False ceilings. The suspended ceiling is where most of a Dubai fit-out actually happens — it carries the AC ductwork, the grilles, the lighting, the sprinklers and the cabling, and it is the item most often value-engineered until it cannot be maintained. We install gypsum board ceilings, plain and perforated acoustic tiles, exposed and concealed grid, bulkheads, coves and shadow gaps, with proper access panels wherever a valve, damper or junction box sits above.
Partitions. Gypsum board partitions on metal stud, single or double board, with insulation where acoustic separation matters. Glass partitions, frameless and framed, single and double glazed, with manifestation. Demountable systems where the tenancy may change. Full-height and part-height. We build to the fire and acoustic rating the specification calls for and we say which on the submittal.
Board and systems we work with: Knauf, Gyproc, Saint-Gobain and Armstrong. Moisture-resistant board in wet areas, fire-rated board where the compartment line requires it, and impact-resistant board in circulation areas where trolleys and traffic will find ordinary board within a month.
The detail that decides whether a ceiling lasts. Access. A ceiling with no access panel above a fan coil unit, a volume damper or a valve is a ceiling that gets cut open the first time anything needs attention, and it never looks the same afterwards. We locate access panels from the services drawings before the ceiling closes, not after.
Lighting. LED throughout — recessed downlights, linear profiles, cove and indirect. Emergency and exit lighting to the layout the authority approves.
Distribution. The new layout needs the power distributed to it, which usually means new circuits, sometimes a new distribution board, and always proper containment. This is DEWA-enrolled electrical work. Where the unit or the building has parking on the lease, we can bring in charging points in the car park as part of the electrical package.
Small power. Floor boxes for desks in open plan, dado trunking at desk height or perimeter trunking down at skirting level, dedicated circuits for equipment that needs them, and cleaner's sockets where they are actually reachable. The most common complaint after handover is too few sockets in the wrong places, and it is entirely avoidable at drawing stage.
Structured cabling. Data outlets at every desk position and every device position, cabled back to a comms room, terminated, tested and labelled. Wireless access point positions planned rather than improvised, with power and data at ceiling level. Cabling for door access, CCTV where required, and AV in meeting rooms.
Lighting. Levels appropriate to the task: an accountancy office and a salon and a boutique need entirely different schemes. In offices, glare control and the interaction with screens matter more than raw brightness, and a good scheme also produces a better result on video calls. Feature and accent lighting in reception and client-facing areas, task lighting where it is genuinely used, and controls (zoning, dimming, occupancy sensing and daylight response), which reduce consumption and are cheap to install at fit-out stage and expensive to retrofit.
Emergency lighting and exit signage to the approved layout, tested at handover.
The base building brings cooling to your floor. What happens after that is fit-out work, and it is the service most often left too late.
The layout problem. The existing supply and return grilles were positioned for an open floor. Once you build partitions, some rooms will have two supplies and no return, and others will have neither. Ducting and grilles have to be reworked to the new layout: otherwise you will have meeting rooms that are unusable after twenty minutes and corner offices that need a jumper in August. Where sections have to be remade rather than reused, we have ductwork fabricated to the new layout.
Fan coil units. Relocating, adding or replacing units, with the associated pipework, condensate drainage and controls. Condensate drainage deserves attention: a poorly run condensate line in a ceiling void is the water-damage cause we are called to most often in a Dubai commercial interior, exactly as it is in homes.
Zoning and controls. Rooms with different occupancy and different heat loads need separate control. A single thermostat serving both a meeting room and an open-plan area will always be wrong for one of them.
Fresh air and extract. Meeting rooms need fresh air proportional to their occupancy. Pantries, toilets, salon chemical areas and clinic rooms need dedicated extract. Comms rooms need dedicated cooling that runs independently of the office system, because the office system will be off at night and the equipment will not.
Heat loads. A room full of people, screens and equipment in a Dubai summer is a real cooling load. Designing on floor area alone under-provides for meeting rooms and comms rooms every time.
Related: AC installation and AC maintenance.
Built-in joinery is what makes a commercial interior look considered rather than furnished from a catalogue, and it is a trade we hold in-house: see carpentry and joinery.
Typical commercial joinery: reception desks with power, data and cable management built in; storage walls and cupboard runs; pantry and tea point cabinetry with the plumbing coordinated; meeting room credenzas with AV housing and ventilation; wall panelling, slatted and fluted feature walls; branded feature elements and signage backing; retail display units, shelving and cash desks; salon reception, styling stations, mirror units and stock storage; and clinic reception and treatment room furniture built to the approved finish specification.
The materials rules that apply in a commercial setting: everything gets more use than it would in a home, so hardware ratings matter; wet and pantry areas need moisture-resistant board and properly sealed edges; and any finish in a client-facing area needs to be repairable, because it will be damaged.
Carpet tile remains the standard office floor: acoustically useful, replaceable tile by tile when a section is damaged, and available in enough patterns to zone a floor plate visually.
Luxury vinyl tile (LVT) is durable, water-resistant and quiet, and works well in circulation, pantries and client areas.
Porcelain tile for reception, retail and heavy-traffic areas, with slip ratings chosen for the location: the entrance from outside is where slips happen. Where a unit already has marble or natural stone that has gone dull under traffic, restoring it is usually the better spend: see stone floor restoration.
Epoxy and resin for back-of-house, storage and technical areas.
Raised access floors where cabling and small power need to run under the floor, and where the base build already has them.
Walls and decoration. Paint remains the workhorse; specification matters in high-traffic corridors where a washable finish saves repainting every quarter. Wall coverings, acoustic panels, timber and slatted panelling, and glass manifestation all sit within the finishes package. See office painting.
The finishes point that matters: specify for maintenance, not just for the photograph on handover day. A finish that cannot be cleaned or touched up will look tired within a year in a commercial setting.
Almost every commercial fit-out in Dubai happens in a building where other people are working, and that governs how the job runs.
Hours. Buildings commonly restrict noisy work to particular hours, and some restrict it entirely during business hours, which means core drilling, chasing and demolition happen in the evenings or overnight. That is not a problem, but it changes the programme and it has to be planned rather than discovered.
Access. Service lift booking, loading bay slots, security passes for every crew member, and defined routes through the building. In buildings with a single service lift shared by every contractor on site, the lift slot is often the real constraint on progress.
Protection. Lift interiors, lobbies, corridors and common finishes get protected before anything is carried through them. Damage to common areas is charged to the contractor and, more to the point, sours the relationship with the building management you need for the rest of the job.
Dust and noise containment. Hoarding or dust screens at the boundary of the work area, extraction that holds the work area at negative pressure, so dust drifts into the hoarding rather than out onto the occupied floor, and cutting done outside the occupied zone wherever it can be.
Waste. Removed by the agreed route at the agreed times, in the agreed manner. Buildings care about this more than almost anything else.
Fire and life safety. Detection heads covered during dusty work and, critically, uncovered afterwards, sprinkler isolations arranged formally with the building rather than informally, and escape routes kept clear throughout.
We handle all of this as part of the job, and we hold the insurance and the DEWA approval that buildings ask for before they issue a permit.
If you are building around a working team, tell us the hours the building allows and the hours your business can actually afford to lose. We will tell you which parts of the job have to move to nights before we put a price on it.
Sequence. Strip-out, first-fix services, partitions, ceiling grid, second-fix services, ceiling tiles, joinery, flooring, decoration, final fix, testing and commissioning, snagging, handover. Each stage depends on the one before, which is why a delay early in the programme is not recoverable later by working faster.
Phasing. Where a business has to keep operating, the fit-out is phased: build one half, move the team across, build the other half. It costs more and takes longer overall than a single-phase build, and for a business that cannot close it is worth it. Phasing has to be designed in at the start, because it changes how the services are cut over.
Long-lead items. Glass partition systems, specific door sets, bespoke joinery finishes, specialist lighting and branded elements all have lead times. These are ordered early or they become the reason a programme slips at the end when everything else is finished.
Snagging and handover. We walk the space with you, list the defects, clear them, and hand over. Where a landlord or a tenant wants an independent list rather than the contractor's own, we do that separately as a snagging inspection. Handover documentation covers the as-built information, test results for the electrical and data installations, commissioning records for the AC, operating and maintenance information for the systems installed, and the warranty documentation for products supplied.
After handover. Warranty terms for your job are confirmed in the written quotation. Products and equipment carry their manufacturers' warranties. We can also take the completed space onto a maintenance schedule, which for a commercial unit where downtime costs money is usually the sensible next step: see commercial maintenance and the maintenance packages.
We visit the unit, review the drawings if you have them, discuss what the business needs the space to do, and then issue a written quote before any work begins: itemised by work package, with the specification stated for each and the exclusions made explicit. If you would rather start on paper, send the floor plan or the fit-out guide and we will read them before we visit.
What moves a fit-out price:
We do not publish fit-out prices, because a quoted rate per square metre with no specification behind it is meaningless and is usually the opening move in a variation game. What you get is a scoped, itemised written quote.
Transparent pricing with no hidden fees. Final price confirmed after assessment.
From AED 215 / sqft
Basic finish
From AED 290 / sqft
Base building finish
From AED 485 / sqft
Occupier finish
From AED 875 / sqft
High spec
From AED 185 / lin.m
Per lin.m of partition
From AED 650 / lin.m
Per lin.m of partition
From AED 95 / sqm
Per sqm of ceiling
From AED 750
Per workstation
From AED 22,000
Standard spec
Explore more services from PROTECH Dynamics
PROTECH Dynamics serves all communities across Dubai
Emergency response available to any location across Dubai.
Our emergency team responds 24/7 across all of Dubai.
Send the floor plan or the fit-out guide and the trading date you are working to, and we will arrange a site visit and give you a written quote before any work begins.
Available 24/7 for emergencies | info@protechfitout.com
