Using container-centric managed access, an administrator is enabled to define a set of future grants for each object that will be created in the future in a container managed by the administrator. When a user creates a database object, the system checks the future grants to determine if any apply to the user, the database object, or the combination. Any applicable future grants are applied to the database object before the user is allowed to modify it. As a result, the administrator is enabled to control the privileges associated with the database object even before the database object is created, while restricting individual object owners from managing privileges on their owned objects.