One contract, every trade
Facilities Management in London
End-to-end facilities management for London commercial buildings: planned and reactive maintenance, building services and compliance, run by one management layer instead of a dozen separate contractors.
Recent work across the group
What facilities management from Guardian covers, and who it is for.
Facilities management from Guardian Management Group is one contract that keeps a London commercial building working. It covers planned preventive maintenance on a calendar built from the building’s own asset list, a reactive line answered around the clock, statutory compliance testing with every certificate filed against the building, the building services trades, fabric repairs and decoration, and soft services such as cleaning and grounds. It is built for facilities managers, property managers, managing agents, landlords and owner-occupiers running offices, industrial units, retail, leisure and mixed-use buildings in London who would rather have one accountable contractor than a diary full of separate ones. A contract can cover one building or a portfolio, one discipline or the full set, and it widens as the service proves itself. Every job is logged with a time, an owner and an outcome, and we commit to one site visit a month on every FM contract, so the building is walked, not just ticketed.
The problem is not the trades. It is the joints between them.
Most commercial buildings in London are maintained by a patchwork. One contractor for electrical, another for air conditioning, a cleaning company, a fire company, someone local for decorating, and a property manager trying to referee it all by email.
Every joint in that patchwork is a place where something goes missing: a job nobody picked up, an invoice nobody expected, a compliance certificate that existed on somebody’s laptop and left with them. The trades are rarely the problem. The gaps between them are.
Guardian Facilities Management replaces the patchwork with one management layer. One number to call, one system of record, one party accountable when something has not been done.
What sits inside a contract with us.
You choose the scope. A contract can cover one building or a portfolio, one discipline or the full set, and it can widen as the service proves itself.
- Reactive maintenance, answered around the clock
- Planned preventive maintenance on a calendar built for your building, not a generic template
- Statutory compliance: fixed wire testing, emergency lighting, fire alarm and fire door inspection, water hygiene, gas safety, lifting equipment, asbestos duty to manage
- Building services: electrical, HVAC, plumbing and drainage
- Building fabric: repairs, decoration, glazing, flooring
- Soft services: commercial cleaning and grounds maintenance
Where a discipline needs an accredited specialist, we hold the relationship, manage the visit and file the certificate. You still deal with one party.
Who this is built for.
Facilities managers, property managers, managing agents, landlords and owner-occupiers running offices, industrial units, retail, leisure and mixed-use buildings in London.
It suits people who want the maintenance of a building to be one relationship with one accountable contractor, rather than a diary full of separate ones.
Why the scope is wider than one contractor.
Guardian Management Group runs the specialist arms as well as the management layer, which is why the scope is unusually wide for a single contract. Commercial Floors London handles flooring. Scan Surveys handles measured building surveys and laser scanning. Commercial Refurbs London handles project work.
The practical effect is that a job which starts as a reactive call and turns out to need a floor replaced, a survey taken or a room rebuilt does not need a new contractor, a new quote cycle and a new set of introductions.
Why one contract
What changes when it is one party, not nine.
The technical work is the same either way. What changes is how much of your week goes on coordinating it.
One number, not nine
Every discipline through one line. You describe the problem; working out which trade owns it is our job, not yours.
Nothing falls between contractors
The gaps between separate contractors are where jobs, invoices and certificates go missing. One party means there are no gaps to fall into.
One system of record
Every job logged with a time, an owner and an outcome, and every certificate filed against the building rather than against whoever did the work.
Reactive feeds the planned
Recurring faults get designed out of the schedule instead of repeatedly attended. That is the point at which maintenance spend starts falling.
Wider scope than a single contractor
Flooring, refurbishment and surveying are inside the group. A job that grows does not need a new procurement exercise.
Predictable cost
A fixed monthly figure against a known schedule is easier to budget and easier to defend than a year of unforecast callouts.
Where we work
Different buildings, different pressure points.
The discipline is the same everywhere. The priorities are not.
Offices and workspace
Multi-let and single-tenant offices where the contract has to hold the landlord and tenant boundary, keep the plant quiet and get everything disruptive done outside working hours.
Maintenance for offices and workspace →
Managing agents and landlords
Portfolios where the buyer is answering to leaseholders, landlords and insurers, and the contract is judged on its reporting as much as its workmanship.
Maintenance for managing agents and landlords →
Leisure and sports facilities
Clubs, gyms and centres with constant water, heavy intermittent use and a close-season window that the whole year’s programme has to fit inside.
Maintenance for leisure and sports facilities →How we work
How a contract actually starts.
- 01
Scope the disciplines
Which trades and services the contract covers on day one, which incumbents stay, and where the boundary sits with your managing agent or in-house team.
- 02
Mobilise
Asset register built, access and out-of-hours arrangements agreed, the reactive line briefed on the building, and the certificates you already hold audited and filed.
- 03
Run the month
Planned visits on the calendar, reactive calls logged and closed, and one site visit a month as standard so the building is walked, not just ticketed.
- 04
Report and widen
A monthly account of what was done, what is due and what is outstanding, and the contract widened or narrowed as the building’s needs change.
Common questions
Questions we get asked about FM.
Can we start with one building or one discipline?
Yes. Start with a single building or a single discipline and widen as the service proves itself. The contract only ever covers what you ask us to run.
Do you self-deliver or subcontract?
Both, and we are straight about which is which. The group directly delivers general building works, repairs, decoration, flooring and a range of maintenance disciplines. Accreditation-gated work such as legionella risk assessment, lift thorough examination and asbestos surveying is delivered by accredited specialists we hold the relationship with, manage and evidence on your behalf.
What areas of London do you cover?
All London boroughs, with the densest coverage across the City, Canary Wharf, Shoreditch, Westminster and the east London corridor. We are a London-only operation: engineers are based in and around the capital, not travelling in from outside the M25.
How is the work reported?
Every job is logged with a time stamp, an owner and an outcome, and every statutory certificate is filed against the building rather than against a contractor. You get one view of what has been done, what is due and what is outstanding.
What response times do you commit to?
On an FM contract we commit to attending emergencies within 2 hours, urgent faults the same day (within 4 hours) and routine faults within 5 working days, and to one site visit a month so the building is walked rather than only ticketed. Which band a job sits in is agreed in the contract and confirmed when the job is logged, so nobody is negotiating it at 2am.
Is facilities management the same as property management?
No. Facilities management keeps the building and its services working: maintenance, compliance, cleaning and repairs. Property management deals with the ownership side: leases, service charges and the relationship with tenants or leaseholders. Many buildings need both, run by different teams that talk to each other, which is why the group has Guardian Property Management alongside the FM contract.
Elsewhere on the site
Related services
Reactive maintenance
One line, answered around the clock, for the things no calendar predicts.
See reactive maintenance →Planned preventive maintenance
A servicing calendar built for the building, so plant is maintained before it fails.
See planned preventive maintenance →Building compliance
Every statutory test your building needs, on one calendar, in one certificate library.
See building compliance →Statutory compliance calendar
Every statutory test, its frequency and the standard behind it, on one page.
See statutory compliance calendar →Book a walk round
Tell us about the building. We will do the rest.
What it is, where it is, and which part of running it is causing you grief. We walk the building, write down what is there, and come back with a scope and a price.