This 12 week series, shows 16 candidates battle it out to become the apprentice of Sir Alan Sugar.

Out of many thousands (in this current series 4 there were about 20,000 applicants) The possible candidates are whittled down and invited to regional interviews and if successful will go on to the next round in London, where they are assessed in groups doing various exercises testing various business skills. With psychological assessments and references checked out, the final candidates are chosen to appear on the show.

The candidates compete in groups and against each other to become the apprentice of Sir Alan Sugar and receive a respectable 6 figure salary!

Along with Nick and Margaret, being Sir Alan's trusted aides, a variety of candidates from all from different backgrounds have come together.

Raef Bjayou 27 Entrepreneur
Jenny Celerier 36 Sales manager
Nicholas de Lacy-Brown 24 Trainee barrister
Sara Dhada 25 Car sales strategist
Lucinda Ledgerwood 31 Risk Manager
Jennifer Maguire 27 Marketing consultant
Lee McQueen 30 Sales manager
Lindi Mngaza 22 Business liaison manager
Kevin Shaw 24 Bank manager
Simon Smith 35 Satellite TV engineer
Michael Sophocles 24 Telesales executive
Helene Speight 32 Global pricing leader
Ian Stringer 26 Sales manager
Shazia Wahab 35 Mosaic artist
Alex Wotherspoon 24 Sales manager
Claire Young 29 Retail buyer

In the previous series the candidates have settled into their new home together and then started their task, but oh no, not on this occasion. Sir Alan has decided that business is business and that business starts right now.

The girls and the boys got split up and each had to think of a name of a team and select a project manager (PM).

The girls chose the name Alpha and had Claire as project manager and the boys chose Renaissance and Alex as their project manager.

Week 1 task was to sell Fresh Fish.

Each team were given £600 worth of fresh fish to sell in a variety of locations in London. Both chose the same place (Islington) to sell. Along with the fish, they had a manual to help them identify the fish and also a wholesale price list. Even with this to hand, both teams made mistakes in both identifying and pricing the fish.

Alpha team won as they made the most profit, £153.98 compared to Renaissance, £32.69.

As Renaissance lost, the PM chose to bring back Raef and Nicholas back into the boardroom. Raef being the the one to incorrectly identify the fish and Nicholas to incorrectly price the fish.

Both Raef and Nicholas had said that there was a split amongst the boys team, which isnt usual in the starting.

Fired: Nicholas, he had said that this rift separated the "educated" with "gritty salesmen". Alex being a "salesman" was gobsmacked and replied back saying that he too was educated. Nicholas replied back "I'm not suggesting you're not... I'm just guessing" which further went on to say "I am very into culture and art. I find it very difficult to have conversations about... football." Which sealed his fate into being fired as Sir Alan is a former chairman to Spurs FC.

Although Raef and Alex could have got the boot, but Alex stepped up to the fact that he become PM when no one else wanted to do it. And Raef, didnt knowingly misidentify the fish, and when asked if they were ok, it was agreed that the identification was fine. He wouldnt have knowingly mislabelled a shark as a hamster as he put it; which brung both Raef and Alex back with fists held high.

Sir Alan went onto say to Nicholas "You were devastated when you got a B in your GCSE French, you are going to be even more devastated now because you got a big F. You're fired!!"

The winning team Alpha got a dinner cooked by Jean-Christophe Novelli.

Jenny was Alpha's PM and Raef was Renaissance's PM.

Week 2 task was to set an overnight laundry business

Each team were given industrial laundrys to use and had to obtain business, launder and deliver before the next day in the afternoon. Both teams also had to try and win contracts from two key business clients - hotel and a fish monger.

Alpha overpriced the laundry for the hotel at £5000 and the Renaissance offered 500, although they settled at £200 to do all 1000 items of bed linen.
The Alpha underpriced the laundry at the fishmongers for £15 even though it was worth £60, Renaissance estimated it at £40.

The Alpha still had their marketing talk and werent getting on with the task in hand and PM wasn't giving clear tasks to anyone, making lucinda feel left out and needing direction. While Renaissance, had done their research on competitors pricing and set about getting the task done.

Renaissance managed to finish all their laundry before the laundry was shut at 2am. Four of them doing the hard work on the bulk of the work and then being later joined by the other three to get the work done. Alpha on the other hand were behind and Shazia suggested that they take items back to be ironed out throughout the night, the PM said to Shazia to go back, and on arrival the found that there werent any irons or ironing boards, as the boys had taken them thinking they would need them but didn't.

Shazia also made a system where by the items were easily identified, however when she had left to go to the house, there was a mix up in the clothing. And found the next day that 2 items of clothing were lost, which the Alpha were fined £50 for.
Alpha also tried to get extra money by asking for tips, when they delivered didn't get very much, as there wer emany disatified customers.
Renaissance team won as they made the most profit, £328.00 compared to Alpha's £195.55.

As Alpha lost, the PM chose to bring back Lucinda and Shazia back into the boardroom. Lucinda was accused of not pulling her weight and Shazia for leaving the team behind to go home and having the items become mixed up.

Fired: Shazia, blamed for having a labelling system failing, once she was told by the PM to leave to go back home.

Shazia didn't get a chance to defend herself at all, with Jenny over doing things by saying in her own words "For the entire process it has felt like I have had to breastfeed you both" and accuses Shazia of having lied, complained, manipulated and didn't deliver, which clearly wasn't the case. Jenny also made Lucinda a scapegoat by picking on her throughout the task and also highlighting her late arrival to a 7am meeting.

The winning team Renaissance got tea at the Ritz.

Sara was Alpha's PM and Ian was Renaissance's PM.

Week 3 task was to run a themed evening of pub grub.

Sir Alan chose both Sara and Ian to lead the teams and each were given a pub, that haven't previously served food as well as a wholesaler list to be able to purchase food from.

Alpha chose a bollywood theme. Renaissance chose an Italian theme.

Both teams have to plan the menu and get supplies, Alpha copy ideas from a local Indian restaurant and Renaissance, with a lot of the guys eating Italian food, they started to put together a menu. Alpha ordered in their supply of meat but couldn't get hold of the appropriate spices. Renaissance had issues with pricing and ingredients and ran out of time before they could buy anything at the wholesalers. The team ended up having to buy supplies at high cost prices at a supermarket.

Alpha managed to get all their flyers printed for free and sold each at £5 which they could take off the bill. Rennaissance spend £200 on flyers., which meant Alpha was in te profit before they had even served a meal.

Alpha could not cook Indian food properly in time and ended up after slaving away at the stoves, missing their opportunity to make a profit at lunch time due to this. Renaissance managed to get through lunch but with supplies ending low, they had to go again to the supermarket. To solve this, Ian thought it would be a good idea to serve half a pizza at dinner.

Alpha had decorated their pub with elegant saris and had a bollywood dancer take to the stage to entertain the guests.

Renaissance made £844.97, but they spent £543 on the food and the printing of flyers, giving a profit of £301.97. Alpha made less at £795.00 but their overheads were much less at £190.73, which gave the girls a bigger profit margin of £604.27 and winning the task.

As renaissance lost, Ian chose to bring in Kevin and Simon. Kevin was blamed on the menu planning and the pricing and Simon for his communication style.

Simon put up a fight saying that there was more to him than doing a hard bit of grafting, Kevin at one point had to round up the group to give them a pep talk, which Ian denied. If Ian had managed the project well, they wouldn't have had to spend on extra on supplies or have to spend over the odds and pay consumer prices rather than wholesale prices.

Fired: Ian, for his lack of management and poor decisions made as a PM.

The winning team got cooking lessons at the famous country cookery school.

Helene was Alpha's PM and Simon was Renaissance's PM.

Week 4 task was to run a photography business based in Bluewater shopping centre by taking photos of the customers and making and selling it as a merchandise rather than a simple snapshot.

Teams were reshuffled and Helene led Raef, Kevin, Lee, Lucinda and Jenny M, while Simon led Alex, Claire, Jenny C, Sara and Michael.

Alpha chose to have a David Beckham look-alike for wannabe consumers to pose with. Renaissance chose to have a glamour and beauty theme, as Simon felt that as the "The grass is green, the sky is blue, and the women are orange. Let's go for a glamour... " But obviously nothing too outrageous!

Simon who takes the lead in actually taking the snaps, along with Michael and Sara go off to buy props and other stuff, while Clare and Alex are in the background dealing with the processing of merchandise.

Helene decides to get Lee to do the photos while she stays in the background with Lucinda and Raef. Kevin and Jenny M went out to find customers who would be happy to pose.

While things in front of the camera are looking very promising for both teams, behind the scenes it was a different story altogether.

Renaissance had problems identifying the pictures and Simon eventually had to stop taking pictures in order to give hand in the printing and producing the merchandise

Alpha on the other hand were having problems operating the software, mainly because although Lucinda did say she wasn't very technical person, she was given the most technical job of all and one which Helene decided to give to her, as she didn't want to do it herself and ended up lashing out! Raef couldn't work the mug making machine so photos ended up being the wrong way round. But in the end managed to get things done, even though it was a few hours later than expected and quite expensive for a photo printout of £15.99!

Alpha made £738.83 but spent a hefty £592.93 on hiring David Beckhams look-alike and other props. Which gave them a profit of £145.10 and went onto win the task.
Renaissance made £503.42. But spent £577.23 for champagne, sofas and fabric which made them a loss of £73.81.

As renaissance lost, Simon chose to bring in Alex and Claire, as both Alex and Claire who were in the background dealing with the production of the photos onto the merchandise, there was a lot of back biting from them. Alex was shifting blame for things going wrong while Claire claimed Simon was "shouty and sweaty"

Claire was sent back to the house to consider what was said about her aggressive take during that task as when Simon was trying to say something to her, she didn't want to listen and over bullied Simon.
Sir Alan in the end just went onto to say that from what he has seen, is that if Simon was asked to build a wall, he would build or to dig a trench, then he would dig but not sure on how he would fare well with a financial portfolio.

Fired: Simon, for being out of his depth.

The winning team got set sail with dinner aboard a luxury yacht to Isle of Wight.