Office Fit-Out IT Scope Checklist: What Goes in the Contract and What Stays Separate

What IT items belong in an office fit-out IT scope?

The office fit-out IT scope should cover the passive layer: everything that is built into the space and hard to change once ceilings, raised floors and partitions are closed. That means cable containment, the cabling itself, outlets and floor boxes, the comms room build, and the power and cooling that room depends on.

The reason is practical. The fit-out contractor already controls the programme, the ceiling grid, the partitions and the electrical work. Trying to run a separate cabling crew around them adds coordination and blame without adding much value. What matters is that the fit-out cabling scope is specified properly, not just written as a number of data points on a drawing.

In a Dubai tower the fit-out contractor also holds the relationship with building management, and normally handles the permits the works need, including approvals from authorities such as Dubai Municipality where they apply. Cabling that runs through risers or shared ceiling spaces sits inside that approval, so it is simpler when it sits inside the same contract.

• Cable containment: tray, basket, trunking and conduit, sized for today plus spare capacity.
• Horizontal cabling to every outlet, terminated at both ends on patch panels and faceplates.
• Floor boxes for open-plan desks and meeting room tables, positioned from the furniture layout.
• The comms room or cabinet build: walls, door, lock, rack, earthing and cable entry.
• Dedicated electrical circuits for the rack and a separate cooling unit for the room.
• Backbone links to the riser, where the building allows it, for the internet provider's line.

What should stay outside the fit-out contract?

Anything that is powered on and configured should normally stay outside the fit-out contract: the firewall, switches, Wi-Fi access points, the UPS set-up, Microsoft 365, laptops and desktops, printers, security settings and backup. These are the items your IT company will support for years, so it should choose, configure and document them.

When active equipment is bought through the fit-out, the usual failure is that it arrives as a line item chosen on price, installed with default settings and handed over with no admin passwords recorded anywhere useful. The contractor has done nothing wrong; it was never their field. Your IT company then spends the first weeks rediscovering what was installed.

There is a grey zone worth naming in writing. Wi-Fi access points are active equipment, but their cables and mounting positions are passive and belong in the fit-out. The same goes for CCTV and door access: the cabling to those positions sits in the fit-out, while the systems themselves come from a security installer and should be placed on their own segmented network by your IT company. Meeting room screens follow the same pattern with the AV supplier.

How many office fit-out data points do you need, and where?

There is no fixed formula, so treat any count as a planning assumption until the furniture layout is final. The sensible approach is to list every position that needs a cable, room by room, and then add spare capacity for the changes that always come later.

The assumptions below are a starting point for discussion with your designer, not a standard. Label them as assumptions in the brief so nobody later treats them as a requirement that was agreed.

• Assumption: at least one data point per desk, with a second where staff use a desk phone or a docking station on a wired connection.
• Assumption: meeting rooms get points at the table (usually a floor box) and on the wall behind the screen position.
• Assumption: every printer or multifunction device position gets its own point, including the one in reception.
• Assumption: one point per Wi-Fi access point, positioned from a survey or at least a coverage plan, typically in the ceiling.
• Assumption: points for CCTV cameras, door access readers and controllers wherever the security installer's drawing places them.
• Assumption: reception gets points for the desk, any visitor screen and a spare.

Floor boxes or wall points?

Wall points are cheaper to install and easier to reach, and they suit perimeter desks and cellular offices. Open-plan desk clusters in the middle of the floor need floor boxes or a cable route through the desk frames, otherwise cables end up running across the carpet. Floor boxes depend on a raised floor or a slab route, so the decision has to be made before the floor goes down, and their positions only make sense once the desk layout is fixed.

Which cable category?

For a normal office, CAT6 is often enough, while CAT6A gives headroom for newer access points and future equipment. The Wi-Fi Alliance certification programmes for Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7 show how quickly wireless keeps moving, and the cabling you install now should not be the thing that holds a later upgrade back. Our guide to CAT6 versus CAT6A office cabling covers the trade-off in detail.

What are the comms room requirements for a fit-out?

The comms room requirements are simple to state and easy to miss: enough space, clean power, dedicated cooling, security, earthing and a route out to the riser. Each of them has to be on the design drawings, because each one involves a trade other than the cabling installer.

Cooling is the item most often left out. The building air conditioning may switch off or run reduced outside office hours, while the equipment in the rack runs all day and night. In a Dubai summer a small closed room with a switch, firewall and UPS can overheat quickly, so a dedicated cooling unit, independent of the office system, should be in the mechanical scope from the start.

• Space for the rack plus working room in front and behind it, and room to grow.
• Dedicated electrical circuits for the rack, with the UPS size agreed with your IT company.
• A dedicated cooling unit that runs independently of the office air conditioning.
• No water or drainage pipes running above the room.
• A lockable door, with a short list of who holds the key.
• Earthing for the rack and cable containment, done by the electrical contractor.
• Containment routes from the room to every zone of the floor, and to the building riser.
• Riser access for the internet provider, arranged through building management, so du or e& can bring the line in.

How do you write the office fit-out IT scope so nothing falls between the two?

Write one responsibility table and put it in both contracts. Every item gets exactly one owner, and every interface, such as who patches the cables or who connects the UPS, is named rather than assumed.

The table below is a qualitative example of how the split usually works on a Dubai office fit-out. Adjust it to your project, but keep the principle: if an item appears in neither column, it will not be done, and if it appears in both, it will be argued about.

What should be tested and handed over?

Every cable should be tested with a proper certification tester, and you should receive the results for every link before you accept the cabling. Alongside the results you need consistent labels, a port map and an as-built drawing that shows where each outlet actually ended up.

Ask for the test results as files, not a signed statement that testing was done. A continuity check from a simple tester is not the same thing as certification. If a link fails, it should be fixed and retested before handover, not noted on a snagging list that nobody closes.

The as-built drawing matters more than it seems. Positions move during a fit-out, and the design drawing rarely reflects what was installed. Without an accurate record, every future move, addition or fault starts with someone tracing cables in the ceiling.

• Certification test results for every link, matched to the labels.
• Labels on both ends: faceplate and patch panel, using one scheme.
• A port map showing which panel port serves which outlet and room.
• An as-built drawing of outlet and containment positions.
• Photographs of containment routes before the ceiling closes.

When in the programme should IT be involved?

IT should be involved at design stage, again before ceilings close, and again in the final days before occupation. Most problems on a fit-out come from joining at the wrong moment, usually too late.

At design stage the IT requirements for office fit-out get fixed into the drawings: outlet positions, the comms room size, its power and cooling, and the access point plan. This is also when the internet line should be ordered, because provider lead times in Dubai can outlast a short fit-out programme. On shell-and-core floors this stage matters most, since everything is being designed from nothing.

Before ceilings close, someone from the IT side should walk the floor, check containment and cable routes against the design, and confirm testing is booked. Afterwards, fixing a missed cable means opening finished ceilings and repainting.

In the final days, once the room is clean and cooled, the active equipment goes in, the internet line is connected and everything is configured and tested. Contractors are often still on site at odd hours in this period, so plan equipment installation around dust-heavy work, not in the middle of it. A dedicated office IT project management role keeps these three moments on the fit-out programme rather than in someone's inbox.

How Listonics helps with office fit-out IT scope

Listonics works with tenants and project leads to write the office fit-out IT scope before the contract is signed: the responsibility split, the data point schedule, the comms room requirements and the testing and handover list. It can deliver the structured cabling itself, or review the fit-out contractor's design and test results, and it supplies and configures the active equipment, Microsoft 365, devices and security. Contractors can see how the same work looks from their side on our IT partner for fit-out contractors page. Every project starts with a free site survey and is quoted as a fixed-scope, itemised proposal. Ongoing support is a fixed monthly fee per user or per device. To review a fit-out scope, contact the Listonics team.

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Written by Srinivasan Ramachandran, Founder, Listonics · Published Sep 24, 2026 · Last reviewed September 24, 2026 · 2,209 words