EMEA Office Fit-Out Cost Guide 2025

Key findings:

1. Greater focus on office attendance in 2025. While hybrid working remains the prevalent workplace policy across EMEA, many companies are focussing on improving attendance rates and increased days in the office. Balancing costs remain critical, with targeted investment in smaller footprints but higher quality environments and technology to enhance existing office space.

2. Costs pressures continue across EMEA. Inflation has been a significant challenge since the pandemic. While there have been some signs of stabilization in early 2025, recent global economic uncertainty is increasing risks of price fluctuations, supply chain disruption and currency volatility in the next 12 months.

3. Market uncertainty impacting project timeframes. Office fit-out projects are seeing increasingly tighter timeframes for delivery. Increased time pressures are reported across most major markets in Europe and the Middle East, with implications for material costs, lead times, and labour availability.

4. Sustainability remains top corporate driver. Driven by corporate commitments, higher local environmental standards, and an aging building stock, sustainability remains the driving force in relocation strategies and office fit-outs across EMEA. 

In Europe and the Middle East, hybrid working remains the predominant workstyle, distinguishing these regions from others globally. Employee-centric policies continue to drive workplace design and location strategies, reflecting a deeper understanding that a 'hybrid workplace' must be tailored to each company's unique needs and working practices.

2025 is defined by greater diversity in workspaces, with an emphasis on collaboration areas and focus rooms. This trend is accompanied by a renewed push for in-office attendance, as organizations seek to increase the number of days employees work from the office within their hybrid policies.

JLL research reveals that while 65% of organizations in EMEA have adopted hybrid workplace policies, office attendance remains a key concern. In 2024, 41% implemented mandatory attendance policies, and 44% plan to increase office-based work days over the next five years. This focus on physical presence is driving continued demand for high-quality office spaces and fit-outs that enhance workplace experience and performance.

Technology integration is at the forefront of enhancing hybrid work environments across all office typologies. Companies are investing in improved and extended AV systems for both individual and collaborative workspaces. Additionally, an increasing number of organizations are implementing utilization monitoring to manage attendance strategies and optimize occupancy patterns.

Despite ongoing cost pressures for Corporate Real Estate functions, technology investments aimed at improving energy and operational efficiency are likely to take priority in capital planning. These investments reflect a strategic approach to balancing the demands of hybrid work with the need for cost-effective, sustainable office spaces.

As we navigate this evolving landscape, it's clear that the future of work in EMEA is not just about where work happens, but how it happens. Organizations that can effectively blend the benefits of remote work with the collaborative power of in-office presence will be best positioned for success in this new era of work.

Our EMEA Fit-Out Cost guide provides insights into costs associated with fitting out office space across 40 countries. Our methodology uses a standardised office layout and JLL design standards, which is costed by local experts in each market, to assess comparable costs across regions using a like-for-like project comparison.

JLL’s Office Fit-Out Cost Guide provides a benchmark to understand typical costs for office fit out projects. Standardized projects with benchmarked specifications are priced in all locations across EMEA. The project is a contemporary office building in a central business district, with a moderately open and flexible layout and medium-quality finishes as per JLL design standards.

Projects in Northern Europe typically having the highest costs, while Southern Europe costs are comparably lower. However, within this context, there is a complex interplay of regional and local economic, regulatory, and market factors that affect the fit-out industry across different regions.

Understanding costs in key cities can be critical to portfolio CAPEX planning and the implementation of corporate design requirements across regional locations. To understand the relative difference in costs between cities, comparable costs of office fit-outs in each city are assessed against a baseline to London.

The top five cities in EMEA are Zurich, London, Munich, Dubai and Riyadh. These cities remain highly competitive locations for fit-out projects, with high costs associated to labour, materials and market expectations of high-quality finishes.

The EMEA construction sector is grappling with a complex array of cost pressures in 2025. While cost profiles vary regionally, Builders' Works (from partitions and flooring to finishes and joinery) typically accounts for the largest component of fit-out costs in all countries. The proportion of cost spent on Builders' Works was found to range between 20% and 45% of costs in some countries.

Mechanical & Electrical (M&E) services is increasingly accounting for a higher proportion of spend. The proportion of cost across EMEA was found to be 25%, but this was as high as 40% or more in some countries and cities. The average cost per sqm for M&E services was indexed against London, to highlight countries which have relative high cost for M&E in comparison to overall.

Higher environmental and sustainability standards in offices require more complex M&E services in some cases, while the cost of importing specialist equipment and skilled labour forces for installation are influencing costs in some countries, including Ireland and Germany. Some regions have also seen lead times for M&E equipment increase in the last 12 months, impacting pricing and project timeframes.

The momentum for sustainable workplaces continues to surge across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), propelled by a combination of corporate commitments, evolving expectations, and increasingly stringent regulatory requirements. Our research reveals that a majority of EMEA markets have witnessed a significant uptick in client inquiries for more sustainable fit-outs over the past 12-24 months, underscoring the growing importance of environmental considerations in workplace design and construction. This trend is further corroborated by JLL's Future of Work survey, which found that 68% of Corporate Real Estate (CRE) leaders in EMEA are planning to increase investment in sustainability performance over the next five years. Notably, this sentiment is even more pronounced in the Middle East, UK, and Italy.

In today's dynamic real estate landscape, organisations face complex challenges in meeting sustainability requirements. The limited availability of suitable stock, coupled with the high costs of upgrading dated buildings, creates a tension between demonstrating long-term value and addressing immediate workforce needs.

To navigate these challenges effectively, early planning and integration of ESG targets in fit-out projects are crucial. This proactive approach allows organisations to anticipate potential hurdles, such as extended timeframes for sourcing sustainable materials, opportunities for reusing existing furniture, and the installation of complex mechanical systems to meet environmental targets.

One area seeing increasing focus is approaches to reinstatement at end of lease, and identifying opportunities to incorporate re-use, recycling and social impact into reinstatement strategies.

Reinstatement costs, also known as dilapidations or asset restoration obligations, is a term that generally describes a tenant’s liability at the end of their lease of how they must return the premises to the landlord. Reinstatement requirements can have both positive or negative impacts on sustainability outcomes and metrics as an important but often overlooked aspect of whole-life impact of a fit-out. sustainability & ESG remain to be key priorities and drivers in office relocations and fit-outs.

There are opportunities for increased collaboration between landlord and tenant to support sustainable reinstatement approaches. While there are benefits for tenants to undertake complete remodel of an office to support their specific workforce needs and organisational branding, designing with circularity in mind is critical, considering products and materials that can be recycled, re-used or donated to third parties at end of life.

Flexibility & agility within uncertainty

• Increased uncertainty will likely dominate economic and cost outlooks, as the impacts of ongoing U.S. trade policy on global supply chains remain unknown. Corporates should build flexibility and agility into project planning and office design to mitigate risks, including agility in capital planning, increased uptake of flex office space to mitigate short term need, and workplace design that flexes against evolving needs.

Collaborative partnerships 

• With continued cost pressures and risks of global economic uncertainty, effective partnerships between clients, project teams and supply chains are more important than ever. Early engagement with capital planning, cost management and project delivery teams is critical to deliver high quality environments and innovative building solutions that meet workforce and sustainable requirements.

Early integration of sustainability KPIs
 

• Early integration of ESG targets in fit-out projects are crucial for increasingly complex operating environments and workspace requirements. Project teams should seek to collaborate across supply chains to anticipate and address potential hurdles, such as extended timeframes for sourcing sustainable materials or products, the installation of complex mechanical systems to meet environmental targets and to identify opportunities for reusing or recycling existing furniture and fittings.