Series 16 (UK)

Series Sixteen of The Apprentice (UK), a British reality television series, is due to begin broadcasting in the UK from 6 January 2022 on BBC One, and will again feature 16 candidates. It will be the first series to be broadcast since the COVID-19 pandemic, with filming originally planned to begin in Spring 2020, however the pandemic forced the BBC to postpone production until the following year. The BBC instead aired six special compilation episodes featuring highlights from previous series which aired from 1 October to 5 November 2020. The series features sixteen candidates and sees Tim Campbell, the winner of the first series replace Claude Littner as Lord Sugar's aide, after Littner suffered an injury whilst cycling.

Candidates

Candidate	Background	Age	Result
Harpreet Kaur	Dessert parlour owner	30	Winner
Kathryn Louise Burn	Online pyjama store owner	29	Runner-up
Stephanie Affleck	Online children's store owner	28	Fired after interview stage
Brittany Carter	Hotel, front of house manager	25	Fired after interview stage
Akeem Bundu-Kamara	Financial firm strategy manager	29	Fired after the tenth task
Aaron Willis	Flight operations instructor	38	Fired after the tenth task
Akshay Thakrar	Digital marketing agency owner	28	Fired after the ninth task
Nick Showering	Finance manager	31	Fired after the eighth task
Sophie Wilding	Boutique cocktail bar owner	32	Fired after the seventh task
Amy Anzel	Beauty brand owner	48	Fired after the sixth task
Francesca Kennedy Wallbank	Sustainability company owner	26	Fired after the fifth task
Alex Short	Commercial cleaning company owner	27	Fired after the fourth task
Navid Sole	Pharmacist	27	Fired after the third task
Shama Amin	Children's day nursery owner	41	Quit before the third task
Conor Gilsenan	Sales executive	29	Fired after the second task
Harry Mahmood	Regional operations manager	35	Fired after the first task

Performance Chart

Task Number
Candidate	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Harpreet	IN	IN	IN	WIN	IN	IN	IN	WIN	IN	LOSE	IN	HIRED
Kathryn	WIN	IN	IN	BR	IN	LOSE	IN	BR	BR	BR	IN	RUNNER-UP
Stephanie	IN	IN	IN	IN	IN	WIN	IN	LOSE	BR	BR	FIRED
Brittany	IN	IN	IN	IN	LOSE	IN	IN	IN	WIN	BR	FIRED
Akeem	BR	IN	IN	IN	WIN	IN	WIN	IN	IN	FIRED
Aaron	IN	LOSE	IN	IN	IN	BR	IN	IN	IN	FIRED
Akshay	LOSE	IN	BR	BR	IN	IN	BR	BR	FIRED
Nick	IN	BR	WIN	IN	IN	IN	BR	FIRED
Sophie	IN	IN	LOSE	IN	BR	IN	FIRED
Amy	IN	IN	IN	IN	IN	FIRED
Francesca	IN	WIN	IN	IN	FIRED
Alex	IN	IN	IN	FIRED
Navid	IN	IN	FIRED
Shama	IN	IN	LEFT
Conor	IN	FIRED
Harry	FIRED

Key:

Template:Color box The candidate won this series of The Apprentice.

Template:Color box The candidate was the runner-up.

Template:Color box The candidate won as project manager on his/her team, for this task.

Template:Color box The candidate lost as project manager on his/her team, for this task.

Template:Color box The candidate was on the winning team for this task / they passed the Interviews stage.

Template:Color box The candidate was on the losing team for this task.

Template:Color box The candidate was brought to the final boardroom for this task.

Template:Color box The candidate was fired in this task.

Template:Color box The candidate lost as project manager for this task and was fired.

Episodes

Week 1: Cruise Ship

• Original Air Date: 6 January 2022
• Men’s Team: Akshay (Project Manager), Aaron, Akeem, Alex, Conor, Harry, Navid, Nick
• Women’s Team: Kathryn (Project Manager), Amy, Brittany, Francesca, Harpreet, Shama, Sophie, Stephanie
• Task: Create marketing campaigns for a new cruise liner.
• Task Review: The women's team decided to go for a cruise campaign entitled 'Bouji Cruises'. Their campaign was felt to be confusing; due to Kathryn's refusal to listen to her team members, their target demographic did not align with how they had advertised their cruise. As a result, their campaign was on the whole deemed underwhelming as the social media teaser was flawed and their logo somewhat bland, though their advert directed by Amy was deemed acceptable. Meanwhile the men's team decided to opt for a sustainable cruise titled 'Never Ending Nautical'. Their execution of the task was inferior, as squabbles among Akeem's sub-team led to the creation of an incredibly unappealing brown-green logo, not aided by their sub-par social media campaign and advertisement.
• Result: Though unimpressive, the women's team was deemed to have the superior, less flawed campaign on the whole.
• Winner: Women’s Team
• Reward: Champagne reception at the candidates' house.
• Brought into the boardroom: Akshay, Akeem and Harry
• Fired: Harry, with regret - For being a disruptive force on the task and failing to get his point across to his team.
• You're Fired Panel:
• Notes:
  • While her team won, Kathryn drew heavy criticism for her refusal to listen to her teammates surrounding the concept (which even her teammates said they didn't understand) and pitching, which she put herself forward for despite later admitting she had never pitched prior. It was indicated that had the women's team lost, Kathryn would've been fired.
  • Conversely, Amy struggled with controlling her sub-team of Brittany, Harpreet and Shama, as they (with the exception of Shama) refused to listen to her or each other. Despite this, her advertisement was the only element of either campaign to gain some sort of positive reception.
  • During the creation of their social media campaign, Sophie made an error by wearing a green dress in front of a greenscreen which rendered her borderline invisible, forcing the women to awkwardly crop her out of the finished product.

• • Unusually, Harry’s “walk of shame” scene was not shown; the boardroom cuts straight to Harry’s taxi interview.

Week 2: Toothbrush

• Original Air Date: 13 January 2022
• Men’s Team: Aaron (Project Manager), Akshay, Akeem, Alex, Conor, Navid, Nick
• Women’s Team: Francesca (Project Manager), Amy, Brittany, Harpreet, Shama, Sophie, Stephanie
• Task: Design an electric toothbrush aimed at children aged between six and eight, as well as an accompanying app.
• Task Review: The women's team decided to opt with a unisex space theme for their toothbrush with an accompanying app which would have the children add various aspects to a planet of theirs. The team encountered faced mixed reception for both their toothbrush design and app: the brush was seen to be designed as aimed at a younger market than requested, while the app was deemed confusing due to the lack of directions. Meanwhile, Aaron instructed the mean to go with a unisex theme of a magic wand brush. However, Conor's sub-team decided to veto this decision to instead aim at boys, creating a mascot named Wiffy the Wizard. Both the team's app and brush designed were deemed poor, with the brush deemed unappealing due to its brown-green colour scheme and the app deemed unengaging for children. Ultimately, the women's flaws were deemed less significant which, combined with their excellent pitches compared to the men's mediocre ones, led to the women receiving orders and the men not.
• Winner: Women’s Team, by 11,000 orders to 0.
• Reward: Afternoon tea in Chelsea.
• Brought into the boardroom: Aaron, Conor and Nick
• Fired: Conor - for the poor design of the app and going against Aaron's decision, faling to demonstrate his claimed expertise in making mobile applications, and his poor contributions on both tasks.
• You're Fired Panel:
• Notes:
  • Francesca was deemed to have made a number of errors throughout the task, including repeatedly sidelining Shama (who had nursery experience and was even highlighted by the other women as a strong asset despite Francesca's denial), her insistence to go for a plain orange toothbrush (which was vetoed by Amy's sub-team anyway) and her poor, confusing app design which she refused to change despite multiple concerns from her colleagues. Despite this, she received praise for her leadership and her pitching skills were deemed very impressive, something which ultimately drove the team to victory.
  • Lord Sugar was particularly displeased that the men's team had gone for a virtually identical colour scheme to their heavily criticised logo in the previous task; Aaron insisted he opted for this as he wanted it to look like a wand, though admitted when the team returned to the boardroom that it was "embarrassing" after being told numerous times it looked like a "turd".
  • When testing out their brush among a focus group of children, only one of the five raised their hand to signify they liked the men's team's brush. However, due to only two boys being in the focus group (one of whom had raised his hand), Nick reported this back as "half" of the target market had liked their idea, something which was criticised by Lord Sugar, Tim and even Nick's teammates. Though he was not fired, Nick received serious condemnation for his lack of contribution thus far and was told by Lord Sugar he must be the next project manager, heavily implying he'd be fired if he lost. Additionally, when told he'd be brought back into the final boardroom, Nick attempted to question this and asked his team whether Aaron had made the right decision, something which was shot down by both Aaron and Lord Sugar.
  • The candidates in the house were notably surprised Conor had been fired; all of them had said prior that Conor was "definitely" returning.

Week 3: Non-Alcoholic Drinks

• Original Air Date: 20 January 2022
• Diverse: Nick (Project Manager), Aaron, Akeem, Alex, Brittany, Francesca, Harpreet
• Infinity: Sophie (Project Manager), Akshay, Amy, Kathryn, Navid, Stephanie
• Task: Create a new non-alcoholic drink and pitch it to major retailers.
• Task Review: Diverse created a vodka-styled energy lime soda called Vodify. Although they encountered issues with its flavour and the overall quality of the drink came under fire from the retailers, they made decent sales at the launch. Infinity created a mixed-spice drink called Crafted and Spiced, however also encountered issues after they chose to add peach into the drink which was not mentioned in their branding and ultimately they made far less sales at the launch as a result, costing them the task.
• Result: Infinity received 2,502 orders, while Diverse received 10,675 orders.
• Winner: Diverse, by 8,173 orders.
• Reward: Cocktail masterclass at TT Liquor.
• Left (shortly before the briefing): Shama - For health issues that would make it difficult for her to participate in future tasks.
• Brought into the boardroom: Sophie, Akshay and Navid
• Fired: Navid, with regret - For his contributions towards the team's drink, his poor track record, poor team skills and having an unsuitable personality for the process.
• You're Fired Panel:
• Notes:

Week 4: Fishing

• Original Air Date: 27 January 2022
• Diverse: Harpreet (Project Manager), Aaron, Akeem, Brittany, Francesca, Nick
• Infinity: Alex (Project Manager), Akshay, Amy, Kathryn, Sophie, Stephanie
• Task: Source and sell seafood to both a corporate client and the public in Brighton. Most profit made, wins.
• Task Review: Diverse decided to sell pollock and dover sole to their corporate clients and pollock tacos to the public. However they failed to secure full payment from the client due to the poor quality of their fish but ultimately made decent sales by the end of the day. Infinity decided to offer monkfish and plaice to their corporate client and crab arancini to the public, but failed to also offer crab to their clients and lost out on a lot of custom as a result and were further hampered by the use of costly garnishes for the arancini. Although they made healthy sales, their mistakes in the beginning, particularly the issue with the crab cost them victory.
• Result: Infinity made a profit of £116.56, while Diverse made a profit of £312.42.
• Winner: Diverse, by £195.86.
• Reward: Shark cage experience at the Sea Life London Aquarium.
• Brought into the boardroom: Alex, Akshay and Kathryn
• Fired: Alex - For his poor leadership, forgetting to sell the crab to the clients, leading his team to a crushing defeat, and not bringing Amy or Sophie back into the boardroom.
• You're Fired Panel:
• Notes:
  • Kathryn had to leave the task due to illness at some point during the first day when Alex and Akshay were preparing the fish, leading to them taking markedly longer than the other subteam. She returned the following day.
  • Though she was not fired or brought into the boardroom, Amy received criticism for effectively shafting Alex into the role as Project Manager and then criticising his performance as such. Lord Sugar found it surprising that Alex not to bring Amy back as the two argued in the task review.
  • To even out the teams, Lord Sugar had Alex move over to Infinity.

Week 5: Gaming

• Original Air Date: 3 February 2022
• Diverse: Brittany (Project Manager), Akshay, Francesca, Nick, Sophie, Stephanie
• Infinity: Akeem (Project Manager), Aaron, Amy, Harpreet, Kathryn
• Task: Create a computer game and pitch a concept to a panel of hugely successful games investors.
• Task Review: Infinity created a third-person prison escape game called Time, featuring an MI5 operative being wrongly imprisoned who attempts to escape from her place of incarceration. Although their game received some criticism for its generic name, lacking content and being a little boring, their playable character and design were praised and all three investors backed the game. Diverse created a platform game called Arctic Saviour, which sees a scientist on his quest to rescue animals in the Arctic. However their game was criticised for being very simplistic in design, alongside its subtext and that the word arctic was misspelled in their branding as "artic", resulting in the team receiving no investment at all.
• Result: Infinity received an investment £60,000, while Diverse received an investment of £0.
• Winner: Infinity, by £60,000.
• Reward: Life-size game of Monopoly.
• Brought into the boardroom: Brittany, Francesca and Sophie
• Fired: Francesca - for being responsible for the poor branding, not accepting the blame for her mistakes and for her stubbornness towards working with others.
• You're Fired Panel:
• Notes:
  • For this task, Akshay, Sophie and Stephanie were moved over to Diverse, and Akeem, Aaron and Harpreet were moved over to Infinity.
  • Though their team won, Infinity notably struggled in their pitches. Akeem accidentally walked out before opening the floor to questions while Harpreet stumbled at notable points, something which was picked up in the boardroom. Diverse hardly fared better, however, as not only did their experts note the misspelling, but the team incorrectly thought the Arctic had penguins (which are native to Antarctica).
  • Francesca's firing was considered somewhat surprising by the candidates, viewers and even Lord Sugar and his aides, with Lord Sugar himself noting that he once saw "a future" for Francesca in the process before firing her. However, not only was her error deemed unrectifiable, but her refusal to admit to it (blaming the entire sub-team and not herself), her insistence not to point it out in the pitch and her consistent undermining of her teammates (especially Sophie) throughout the task caused Lord Sugar to lose faith in her.

Week 6: Wales

• Original Air Date: 10 February 2022
• Diverse: Stephanie (Project Manager), Akshay, Brittany, Nick, Sophie
• Infinity: Kathryn (Project Manager), Akeem, Aaron, Amy, Harpreet
• Task: Run a highland railway, quarry tour and zip-line at a tourist hot-spot in North Wales.
• Task Review: Infinity decided to opt for including a quarry and deep mine tour, zipline experience and cheese-tasting workshop as the aspects of their tour, with Kathryn setting the ticket sale price at £75. However, the team were unable to negotiate a decent deal with the quarry and zipline, while Amy and Aaron sold tickets well-below the £75 guide. Further issues were caused when Amy and Aaron negotiated a deal with their cheesemonger which would require them to sell more hampers of cheese than they had people on the tour. Despite this, the team's package itself was fairly well-received, bar Akeem's sombre quarry tour. Diverse opted for the highland railway tour which included watercolour painting and whiskey tasting for £70. Though they negotiated well for the railway tour, Sophie and Akshay struggled working together both in selling tickets and negotiating for the whiskey tasting workshop. Their tour itself was more mixed: Nick's railway tour was unorthodox but enjoyable, weather conditions interrupted their watercolour painting and Sophie was stilted presenting their whiskey tasting. However, the team benefitted from having higher profit margins and greater sales which, along with the lack of refunds for either team, caused them to win.
• Result: Infinity made a profit of £203.85 while Diverse made a profit of £356.83. Neither team had refunds.
• Winner: Diverse, by £152.98.
• Reward: Champagne at the Royal Suite in the Corinthia Hotel.
• Brought into the boardroom: Kathryn, Aaron and Amy
• Fired: Amy, with regret - for selling tickets below Kathryn's guidelines, not stepping up to be project manager and for her lack of noteworthy contributions throughout the process.
• You're Fired Panel:
• Notes:
  • Aaron and Amy came under scrutiny in the final boardroom for their very cheap sales of the tickets; after meeting with the tour vendor and only negotiating to £62 from the RRP of £85, Kathryn contacted the sales sub-team immediately to try and get them to increase ticket prices above her initial £75 guide. However, as they were struggling, Aaron and Amy ultimately sold all of their tickets at a price point lower than £75 anyway, causing the team to make minimal profit and resort heavily to sales later on. As a result, Kathryn immediately brought both back into the final boardroom.
  • A heavy factor in Amy's firing was that although she claimed she had put herself forward as project manager (something Lord Sugar had noted she had avoided since pushing Alex to do so in the fourth task), she did so very tentatively, going as far as to say it was "not synergistic with her skillset". Kathryn only put herself forward on the basis that she'd done corporate event management which Amy encouraged as "the most pertinent experience" despite Kathryn's suggestions otherwise, something which Lord Sugar argued also showed Amy was unwilling to take on the role of being a leader.
  • Although Infinity lost and she was criticised for the poor negotiation early on in the task, Kathryn was praised for maintaining positive energy throughout the experience which ultimately endeared the tourgoers to the team and caused them to at least gain some profit from sales. Karren reported afterwards that the tour vendor would've dropped his prices lower than what Kathryn settled on, though it was also noted that Akeem and Harpreet had taken a backseat in not supporting Kathryn with the negotiation whatsoever.
  • Though she was not brought back into the final boardroom, Harpreet's involvement on the task came into question; while she was praised for maintaining enthusiasm with Kathryn throughout the tour, she was noted by Karren to contribute little throughout the tour, sales and negotiation. However, Kathryn defended her as she felt Harpreet had supported her throughout the tour and had passed on to Aaron and Amy that the tour itself was valued at £85..
  • Towards the end of the task, Stephanie attempted to gain last-minute income through a tip jar. Though this proved moderately successful, Sophie's sub-team neglected to do this, which she blamed on miscommunication between herself and Stephanie. On top of this, Sophie's performance in the task was largely criticised as she struggled to work with Akshay in selling tickets, only negotiated a commission of 7% on whiskey sales and gave a poor presentation on the whiskey distillation process (despite her background in the drinks industry), making it evident that had Diverse lost, she'd have likely been fired.
  • Nick's railway tour was dubbed by Tim as "so bad it was good" due to it being erratic, ill-prepared and partially interrupted by a tractor on the field Nick was describing. Despite this, the tourgoers reported enjoying the tour for its unintentional comic value.

Week 7: Pods

• Original Air Date: 17 February 2022
• Diverse: Sophie (Project Manager), Akshay, Kathryn, Nick, Stephanie
• Infinity: Akeem (Project Manager), Aaron, Brittany, Harpreet
• Task: Design, brand and pitch an electric driverless vehicle.
• Task Review: Infinity created a sustainable pod called 'BeePure'. The team struggled for a plethora of reasons: Akeem's leadership was weak, leading to Harpreet taking over a number of key decisions and negotiations, while Aaron and Brittany's design was bland and mismatching between the interior and exterior. As a result, the team made a poor order with their corporate client, though sold better among the other buyers. Diverse decided to create a party-themed pod entitled 'Starpod' with the hope it would be trendy. However, Sophie's vision was unclear and confused the team, who ended up creating a pod which had a generic colour scheme and included a karaoke machine on the interior. The team sold slightly more to their corporate client, however the pod was deemed far too niche which, along with Akshay and Nick's cheesy presentation, led to the team struggling to sell to their other buyers and granting Infinty the win.
• Result: Diverse made sales equating to £535,200 while Infinity made sales of £1,262,800
• Winner: Infinity, by £727,600.
• Reward: Whitewater rafting at Leigh Valley.
• Brought into the boardroom: Sophie, Akshay and Nick
• Fired: Sophie - for her disorganised leadership, creating a product that was useless and hard to sell, her second loss as a project manager, refusing to take blame for her errors and for bringing Akshay into the boardroom instead of Kathryn or Stephanie.
• You're Fired Panel:
• Notes:
  • For this task, Lord Sugar moved Kathryn over to Diverse, and Brittany over to Infinity.
  • Though they won, Lord Sugar was very unimpressed by Akeem's leadership. Harpreet notably had to take control of several situations over the course of the task including the corporate negotiation and dividing sub-teams, something she noted herself during the reward.

Week 8: Silverstone

• Original Air Date: 24 February 2022
• Diverse: Stephanie (Project Manager), Akshay, Kathryn, Nick
• Infinity: Harpreet (Project Manager), Aaron, Akeem, Brittany
• Task: Lay on a racing-themed corporate away day at Silverstone, including a tour, a racing experience and food and drink.
• Task Review:
• Result:
• Winner:
• Reward:
• Brought into the boardroom: Stephanie, Akshay, Kathryn and Nick
• Fired: Nick, with regret - for his lack of contributions, his failure to show any beneficial skills and being partially responsible for the poor lunch service.
• You're Fired Panel:
• Notes:
  • This was Akshay's fifth appearance in the final boardroom overall; he now holds this record with Syed Ahmed of series 2 and Claire Young from series 4.
  • At this point, Harpreet was the only candidate not to appear in the final boardroom.

Week 9: TV Selling

• Original Air Date: 3 March 2022
• Diverse: Akshay (Project Manager), Kathryn, Stephanie
• Infinity: Brittany (Project Manager), Aaron, Akeem, Harpreet
• Task: Sell products live to the nation on one of the country’s leading TV shopping channels.
• Task Review:
• Result:
• Winner:
• Reward:
• Brought into the boardroom: Akshay, Kathryn and Stephanie
• Fired: Akshay, with regret - For his excessive boardroom appearances, constantly being on the losing team, his poor management of his team's live broadcast segments, and his generally atrocious track record throughout the process.
• You're Fired Panel:
• Notes:
  • This was Akshay's sixth appearance in the final boardroom overall; with this, he now holds the record for the most overall appearances in the final boardroom. This was also his eighth loss overall, making him one of the least successful candidates in the British incarnation of the show. The only candidate who ever came close to this was Harry Maxwell from Young Apprentice who lost seven consecutive tasks before his termination, however unlike Harry, and like Thomas Skinner from the previous series, Akshay had at least one victory.

Week 10: Baby Food

• Original Air Date: 10 March 2022
• Diverse: Aaron (Project Manager), Brittany, Kathryn
• Infinity: Harpreet (Project Manager), Akeem, Stephanie
• Task: Create and brand a new baby food.
• Task Review: Infinity created a product titled 'First Time Foodies', with Harpreet creating a baby food which included smoked salmon and vegetables. Though their food itself was greatly liked both by the retailers and the focus group, the branding sub-team of Akeem and Stephanie made a major faux pas by accidentally designing the logo to include the word "dies" prominently. Their performance was further hampered by their decision to not include the flavour on the front of the packaging, their bland poster and their haphazard pitching. Meanwhile, Diverse opted for a Moroccan-inspired baby food named 'Little Taste Adventure'. Their execution of the task was on the whole significantly worse; Aaron's baby food was deemed bland, not particularly healthy and far too thick, while Kathryn's poor time management led to Brittany and herself rushing the packaging and branding. As a result of the major flaws from both teams, neither received any orders.
• Result: Diverse and Infinity received 0 orders.
• Winner: None
• Reward: No Reward
• Fired (before Final Boardroom): Aaron, with regret - For his poor leadership and creating a poor and tasteless product.
• Brought into the boardroom: Akeem, Brittany, Kathryn, Stephanie
• Fired (during Final Boardroom): Akeem, with regret - For a lack of noteworthy contributions throughout the process and failing to spot the errors in Infinity's packaging.
• You're Fired Panel:
• Notes:
  • For this task, Mike Soutar, who normally appears during the interview stage, stood in for Tim, who self-isolated after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19 at the time of filming.
  • For this task, Aaron and Brittany were moved over to Diverse, and Stephanie was moved over to Infinity.
  • This was Harpreet's first time in the final boardroom. Despite this, she was deemed the only candidate who had performed well on the task; Karren revealed in the interim that had it not been for the product's poor branding, one of the retailers would've placed an order for 10,000 units. As such, it was made clear relatively early in the final boardroom that Harpreet would not be fired.
  • Though other candidates ultimately made more egregious errors, Kathryn was scrutinised heavily; not only was this her fifth time in the final boardroom (third consecutively) and seventh loss, but her role as sub-team leader was criticised as Mike noted it was her poor time management that ultimately caused Brittany and herself to create a bland, unfinished packaging.
  • Though initially put onto the production team by Aaron, Brittany countered this by saying she would excel on the branding team as she had succeeded on this throughout the process. Lord Sugar found fault with this, saying she would've likely performed better than Aaron on the product creation and that the branding she created with Kathryn was poor. He also took issue with the fact that Brittany attempted to defend multiple aspects of the branding even after being told by the experts and himself that the branding was very poor.
  • While she was not fired, Lord Sugar took issue with numerous aspects of Stephanie's performance throughout this task. Along with the logo created by herself and Akeem, she advocated against including the flavouring on the front of the packaging, was responsible for the poor poster and proposed immediately changing any elements of their branding the retailers did not like in hopes to gain more orders (this actually had the adverse effect as it led the retailers to deem their branding unfinished). Additionally, although Harpreet and Akeem wanted to point out their logo's obvious issues to the panel in the pitch in order to gain their trust and admit to their faults, Stephanie persuaded them not to do so in the hope that the retailer would not notice. In the boardroom, Stephanie attempted to lie about why she had done this which led to Karren lambasting her, while on You're Fired, Mike pointed out the issues in this as it caused the retailers to believe they were the first ones to notice the issue and thus made the team look even worse.
  • It was noted at the end of the episode that this would be the first ever all-female semi-final in the show's history. However, this would not be the first all-female final four, something which first happened in series five.

Week 11: Interviews

• Original Air Date: 17 March 2022
• Semi-Finalists: Brittany, Harpreet, Kathryn and Stephanie
• Task: The final four candidates undergo a gruelling interview process from four interviewers - Mike Soutar, Claude Littner, Claudine Collins and Linda Plant. Lord Sugar decides on which two will proceed, based on the feedback of their CVs and business plans.
• Candidate Review: Harpreet was deemed the best candidate on the whole due to her track record in the process (which in itself impressed Lord Sugar and Karren) and her solid business plan based on her already existing dessert parlours, which was felt to be an expanding market. The major obstacle faced by the interviewers was that Harpreet's business was co-owned by her sister, which meant that Lord Sugar would not invest solely in Harpreet as a candidate. In addition, the interviewers took issue with some aspects of her plan and Harpreet herself, notably her lack of ambition about scaling up her business, her lack of a USP and what was perceived as her blunt, controlling attitude towards employees and colleagues. The other candidates struggled more: Kathryn's pyjama business was deemed to riddled with flaws, namely that she wanted her pyjamas imported from China (thus causing potentially lengthy delays and counteracting her claims of being an ethical business), that her designs weren't unique as she had claimed and that she projected she would make a loss in the first two years almost equal to the amount of Lord Sugar's investment. However, the interviewers noted that this was a business with the potential to work and that Kathryn would benefit greatly from guidance in the right direction. Stephanie's pre-loved clothing business was felt to have potential due to the gap in the market it covered, though this was felt to be a very niche market which Stephanie herself did not have a great deal of experience in. Further issues were raised surrounding how Stephanie planned on using her investment (of which she was only prepared to use £160,000) and the authentication element which Stephanie had claimed to be her USP; Stephanie admitted she could not authenticate herself and the company she had been planning on using to do this did not authenticate clothing. Brittany fared the worst; while interviewers liked Brittany herself, her business plan to create alcoholic protein drinks was poorly written and neglected virtually all financial details, something worsened by Brittany having no experience in the field her plan was written in. Furthermore, not only was her product itself disliked by the interviewers, but it was also discovered to have already been a failed idea some years prior, countering Brittany's belief that it was wholely original.
• Decision: After questioning the candidates, Brittany was regretfully the first to be fired, as Lord Sugar couldn't overlook her lack of experience in the business. After deliberating further with Karren and Tim, Lord Sugar then re-questioned the candidates, still expressing concerns about Harpreet's sister, Kathryn's shipping and Stephanie's authentication. He lastly decided to fire Stephanie, deciding that the pre-loved market was not one he was interested in. Thus, Harpreet and Kathryn were determined to be the final two.
• Fired:
  • Brittany, with regret - for providing a very limited business plan, for going into a business in which she has no experience and for her flawed business idea.
  • Stephanie - for her lack of a solid USP, for the niche market she proposed going into and questions surrounding her authentication.
• You're Fired Panel: Claude Littner, Gaby Roslin, Daliso Chaponda
• Notes:
  • Despite announcing her as one of the final two, Lord Sugar expressed ambivalence around hiring Harpreet due to her sister being a co-owner. Harpreet stated that she'd had an agreement with her sister prior that her sister would be happy to step down if need be but this did not assuage Lord Sugar.

Week 12: The Final

• Original Air Date: 24 March 2022
• Finalists: Harpreet and Kathryn
• Harpreet's Team: Akshay, Brittany, Navid and Nick
• Kathryn's Team: Akeem, Amy, Harry and Stephanie
• Task: Finalists prepare a pitch for their business plan, including campaigns and branding, before presenting it to a panel of experts. Lord Sugar decides on who is his business partner, based on the feedback on the plan and their overall performance.
• Task Review: Harpreet struggled in naming her dessert business, eventually choosing 'Oh So Yum'. While her and Brittany's branding was deemed acceptable, the other sub-team of Akshay, Navid and Nick struggled filming a billboard due to Navid's performance, leading to their billboard featuring Nick being poor. Kathryn opted for her pyjama business to be titled 'Pyjamily'. Amy's sub-team succeeded on the billboard advertisement, however Kathryn's logo was deemed corporate and unwelcoming. On the second day, Harpreet created a sample product for her business including a plain cookie dough moulded in a shot glass while Brittany's sub-team filmed the advert. Despite the advert took lengthy periods of time to film and being considered overtly tongue-in-cheek, Harpreet was pleased with it, while her prototype product was greatly liked. Kathryn worked on a prototype print for her pyjamas while sending Amy's sub-team to do the advertisement. Though Amy's advert was approved by Kathryn, she clashed heavily with Harry when filming, while Kathryn's jungle print was deemed somewhat out-of-fashion. Despite nerves, both Harpreet and Kathryn pitched their businesses well and answered questions put to them, though Lord Sugar still expressed concerns about scalability for both businesses.
• Decision: Though impressed with their final outcomes, Lord Sugar ultimately had issues about the scalability and crowded market both businesses would be entering. He questioned Harpreet about whether her dessert parlour business was a few years too late after the trend had started and whether she was really a "start from scratch" business, while questioning Kathryn about whether her business being entirely online was feasible in a world post-lockdown and whether she'd be able to stay on trend as her prototype had proven otherwise. After discussing with Karren and Tim about their final performance along with their performance across the process, Lord Sugar invested in Harpreet over Kathryn for the investment.
• Runner-Up: Kathryn - for a weaker overall execution of the final tasks, for concerns about scalability and longevity of her business, for giving some unconvincing answers to questions and for being an overall less impressive candidate than Harpreet.
• Hired: Harpreet - for a stronger execution of the final task, for offering a business in which she already had a plethora of experience, for being more convincing in her investment and for her "formidable" track record across the competition.
• You're Hired Panel: Russell Kane, Tim Campbell, Karren Brady.
• Notes:
  • When questioning her prototype which was jungle-themed, leading retailers questioned Kathryn about her ability to be original and stay on trend, noticing that jungle themes in clothes were popular several seasons ago. Kathryn dismissed this both to the retailers and to Lord Sugar later on by asserting they were still on trend, raising further concerns about her ability to listen to feedback which it was noted previously she would need.
  • Karren noted that Harpreet was beginning to feel notably nervous under pressure, something she had not seen from her before. Harpreet constantly revised her logo with Brittany (going as far as to ensure the colour on every word looked appealing), notably was nervous in her pitch and chose a plain cookie dough as her prototype, something Karren deemed relatively bland. On You're Fired, however, Karren noted how much Harpreet had impressed her over the process while also admitting that her prototype product had still been "delicious".
  • Harpreet admitted afterwards that the ending of the show in which she won (as two endings are filmed with each outcome) had to be filmed twice due to her initial reaction being not animated enough.
  • Lord Sugar did not appear on You're Fired in person but via a webcam as he was in Florida at the time. Previous candidates Amy, Navid and Harry also did not appear. Though it was alleged Navid and Harry did not appear due to an altercation they had had with another contestant, Aaron, Amy was not invited back due to a public fallout she had had with Lord Sugar after the series had aired, claiming she was "not invited" after Lord Sugar had made a series of tweets about her performance on the show.

References

[[Category:The Apprentice (UK TV series) seasons]|}