The boardroom doors are set to swing open once more as the 20th series of The Apprentice is scheduled to launch on BBC One and iPlayer from January 29, 2026. A fresh cohort of twenty ambitious business hopefuls will enter the fray, all competing to win a life-changing £250,000 investment from Lord Alan Sugar.
Meet the 2026 Candidates
This year's line-up promises a diverse mix of professions and personalities, reflecting the broad spectrum of UK entrepreneurship. Among the twenty candidates are a mortgage broker who surprisingly cites reality TV star Kim Kardashian as a key business role model and an actor with plans to launch a touring theatrical production company.
The group's professional backgrounds are notably varied. They include a former RAF gunner who now operates a pet cremation service, a student recruitment agency owner, a tech project manager, a barbershop owner, and an AI consultant. This eclectic mix ensures a wide range of business acumen and, undoubtedly, clashing strategies in the boardroom.
Tasks and Advisers
Lord Sugar will not be making his decisions alone. He will be supported throughout the 12-episode run by his trusted aides, Baroness Karren Brady and Tim Campbell. The trio will put the candidates through a series of gruelling business tasks designed to test their commercial prowess, leadership, and resilience.
The challenges for this milestone series have been revealed to be particularly demanding. Candidates will be tasked with creating and marketing a children's book, before facing the high-pressure environment of selling products during a live television broadcast. In one of the most exotic assignments in the show's history, the teams will also be flown to El Gouna on Egypt's Red Sea coast to organise a corporate away day.
A Milestone Series Begins
The launch of this 20th series marks a significant landmark for the long-running BBC business reality show. With a £250,000 prize and Lord Sugar's mentorship on the line, the stakes remain as high as ever. The combination of unfamiliar tasks in glamorous locations and a fiercely competitive group of candidates sets the stage for another dramatic and unpredictable season.
Viewers can expect the usual blend of ingenious ideas, catastrophic failures, and tense boardroom confrontations as the process of elimination whittles down the twenty candidates to one ultimate winner. The journey to find Lord Sugar's next business partner begins on January 29, 2026.
