Commercial CCTV Installation
North London

Every commercial installation is quoted after a free site survey — there's no fixed floor price because the scope varies hugely between a single-till café and a multi-site retail chain.

We walk the premises, plan camera positions and cable routes, and check what your till points, stock areas and entrances actually need covering. You get a written fixed quote before any work begins — no daily-rate creep, no surprises on the invoice.

What changes the quote: number of cameras, cable routing complexity, NVR storage capacity and retention period, and whether you need multi-site monitoring across more than one location.

Looking for CCTV at a single residential home rather than a business premises? See our CCTV Installation page instead.

Yes — commercial installs follow the same fixed-price-in-writing approach as residential, just scaled and quoted individually rather than off a fixed tier, because the variables are much wider:

Camera count & layout — designed around your actual floor plan, till points, staff entrances, and stock room, not a generic 4-camera kit. Higher-capacity storage — 30+ day retention is common for commercial (vs 14–30 days residential default) to meet insurance or lease requirements. Brand choice — Reolink, UniFi Protect, or Hikvision, whichever suits your site and budget.

Because commercial jobs range from a single shop to a small chain of a few locations, we quote after a free site survey rather than a fixed online tier — same no-obligation, fixed-price-in-writing approach either way.

It depends on the premises, not a fixed number. For most shops, offices, cafés and restaurants, coverage typically needs to include:

the till point or reception desk, the main entrance and any secondary or staff entrance, stockroom or storage areas, and any car park or loading area at the rear. Cafés and restaurants usually add the dining area and kitchen pass; offices usually add server or equipment rooms.

We work this out properly at the free site survey — walking the premises, checking sightlines, and testing for blind spots — rather than guessing a number in advance.

We install all three and give an honest recommendation rather than push whichever we stock:

Reolink — our official partner brand and default recommendation for smaller sites. Best value-to-quality, local NVR option with no monthly fee, reliable PoE range. UniFi Protect — the step-up choice if you already have (or want) a UniFi network; cameras, NVR and video intercom run in one app alongside your network gear, and it integrates well with a wider commercial network setup. Hikvision — a huge range including video door entry and intercom, strong image quality, and proven hardware for retail and hospitality sites with a wider product range.

Tell us your priorities — cost, network integration, or multi-site scale — and we'll recommend the right brand for your business, not just the one we install most.

We install NVR (Network Video Recorder) systems by default — footage is recorded locally on your premises, with no monthly subscription fee.

Residential defaults to 14–30 days of retention; for commercial premises we typically size storage for 30+ days, since insurance claims, staff disputes and stock-loss investigations often surface well after the fact. Exact retention is sized to your camera count and resolution at the free site survey, and can be extended further if your lease or insurer requires it.

Yes — modern high-resolution cameras give clear night footage, though the right setup depends on the location:

4MP/4K resolution gives legible faces and vehicle detail at 5–10m in reasonable light. Infrared (IR) night vision gives black & white footage up to 20–30m and works in complete darkness — the right choice for car parks, loading areas and back entrances. Colour night vision gives full-colour footage at night (useful for identifying clothing or vehicle colour) but needs some ambient light, so it suits shop fronts and dining areas better than dark yards.

We specify the right camera for each position at the free site survey rather than fitting one type everywhere.

Yes. Site surveys and installs can be scheduled before opening, after closing, or on your quietest trading day — whatever causes the least disruption to your business. Most single-premises jobs complete in one to two visits, and we agree the schedule with you upfront as part of the quote.

Business CCTV is treated differently in law to a homeowner's front-door camera — the domestic-use exemption in UK data protection law doesn't apply once you're recording staff, customers, or the public as part of running a business. In general terms:

ICO registration — most businesses running CCTV need to register with the Information Commissioner's Office and pay the data protection fee. Clear signage — visible notices telling staff and visitors that CCTV is in operation and why. Documented retention & access policy — how long footage is kept, who can view it, and why. Staff monitoring specifically — needs a clear, communicated policy; covertly monitoring staff without strong justification is a legal risk.

We're electricians and CCTV installers, not solicitors — for the specifics of your situation, the ICO's own CCTV guidance (ico.org.uk) is the authoritative source. We're happy to talk through the practical setup (retention periods, signage placement) as part of your site survey.

Yes — this is one of the areas UniFi Protect and Hikvision are particularly strong, and a common ask from landlords and multi-site business owners:

Centralised viewing — see every site's cameras from one app or console, rather than logging into separate systems per location. Per-site local recording — each site keeps its own NVR storage, so one site losing internet doesn't affect footage at another. Scales as you grow — add a new site's cameras into the same management app rather than starting a new system each time.

We set this up as part of the commercial site survey — tell us how many sites you need covered and we'll confirm it works for your setup before we quote.

Yes, set up as part of every install. The phone app (Reolink, UniFi Protect, or Hikvision, whichever system we install) gives live view, playback and motion alerts, and can be shared across multiple staff or manager logins with different access levels where the system supports it.

Push notifications cover motion, person, and vehicle detection, with AI filters so you're not alerted every time a delivery van passes rather than actually stops. Setup is done once during install — accessible from anywhere afterwards via the app's secure relay, no port-forwarding required.

Honest answer: any internet-connected device has some risk, but a well-configured system makes you a hard target.

Local NVR, not cloud-only — your footage sits on a hard drive on your premises, not on a third-party cloud server. Strong unique passwords — we change every default password on cameras and the NVR before we leave. Closed network ports — modern systems (Reolink, UniFi Protect, Hikvision) use an outbound-only secure relay, with no inbound port-forwarding to hack. Whichever brand we install, local NVR storage plus secure configuration is what actually keeps a system safe, not the badge on the camera.

Cable routing is planned at the free site survey to avoid disruption to your fit-out — through voids, above suspended ceilings, and under floors wherever possible, with trunking matched to walls or skirting where a run has to be visible. We work around your trading hours where needed, and every job finishes with full testing, app setup, and a handover so you know exactly how to use your system before we leave.