The Apprentice 2024 - Meet the hopefuls vying for Lord Sugar's investment in series 18

In many people’s eyes, the key to its longevity is the deluded and egotistical contestants duking it out for Lord Sugar’s approval and investment.

In recent years, most of the candidates have been sorely lacking on the business savvy front. But what they’e lacked in that, they’ve more than made up for in comedy value, and, let’s face it, they are more like reality stars than aspiring entrepreneurs.

This year’s 16-strong line-up is likely to follow that theme again, with well-worn Apprentice types making plenty of business blunders for schadenfreude-seeking audiences to snigger at.

In 2023, Marnie Swindells’ inclusive boxing gym concept saw her crowned the winner. So who will succeed her and secure Lord Sugar’s £250,000 investment this year?

Over the past few years, the BBC have kicked off the new series on the first Thursday in January, but series 18 has been pushed back due to the success of The Traitors.

‘Business Thursday’ is back with a bang this week though as The Apprentice joins Dragons’ Den in the Beeb’s Thursday night line-up.

As usual, the series begins with a pep talk from Lord Sugar in the boardroom. He is keen to impress upon his candidates that rising costs and economic uncertainty mean value for money has never been more important. That’s from a man who’s worth £1.1billion.

Anyway, the candidates are then split into teams before being sent to the Scottish Highlands.

Once there, they are tasked with organising and hosting a luxury getaway day for corporate clients.

Predictably, there’s chaos in the kitchen, and back in the boardroom, it’s already the end of the road for one candidate.

Other tasks during the series include a tourism challenge in Budapest, discount buying in Jersey, creating a new cereal for children and a virtual escape room, and the annual TV shopping channel task.

As in previous years, Lord Sugar will be joined by Baroness Brady and Tim Campbell to advise him throughout the process.

Former winner Tim is known for shaking head his head and raising his eyebrows at the cringeworthy contestants, but speaking to The Sun, he said this year’s line-up is very strong.

“I think we’ve got the best candidate group ever, it’s amazing,” he said.

“We’ve got the best quality calibre of candidates, business owners, professionals and experts in their fields, who are coming along to give up their time and energy and enthusiasm to be part of one of the most robust interview processes in order to find out Lord Sugar’s next business partner.

“Some are already running very successful enterprises who have all still wanted to come and apply for the unique opportunity to get investment from Lord Sugar and his mentorship.

“That’s really is a credit to him and the power and robustness of the show.

“There’s some massive characters and some really big deals, some amazing deals that are done. We’ve got some really transformational exchanges that have come along in the process.

“I think people who are watching this series are going to pick their favourites because it’s nice to have a character that you can connect to.”