The eleventh series of British reality television series The Apprentice was broadcast in the UK on BBC One, from 14 October to 20 December 2015. Due to the 2015 General Election being held in spring, which Alan Sugar had ties to through his role in the House of Lords, the BBC postponed the series' broadcast until the middle of autumn. This series saw Claude Littner replace Nick Hewer as Lord Sugar's aide. Alongside the standard twelve episodes, with the first two airing on consecutive days, the series was preceded by the online mini-episode "Meet the Candidates" on 6 October, with two specials aired alongside the series â "The Final Five" on 9 December, and "Why I Fired Them" on 16 December.
Eighteen candidates took part in the eleventh series, with Joseph Valente becoming the overall winner. Excluding the specials, the series averaged around 7.18 million viewers during its broadcast.
As Alan Sugar had political ties to the 2015 United Kingdom general election due to his appointment within the House of Lords, the airing schedule for series 11 was postponed until the autumn, in order to adhere to the BBC's political impartiality rules. Due to Nick Hewer departing the programme following its tenth series, Claude Littner was brought in to replace him as Lord Sugar's aide, alongside series regular Karren Brady; Littner also served as an interviewer in the competition's penultimate episode. In addition, Linda Plant makes her first appearance as an interviewer.
Eighteen candidates were selected to take part, and filming took place from mid-spring to early summer. The team names for this series were "Versatile" and "Connexus". This series is notable for being the first in which a project manager of the losing team was fired, and the only series to date in which a candidate (Selina Waterman-Smith) who was fired refused to appear on sister show You're Fired. The eleventh series also drew media attention over the departure of candidate Scott Saunders â while not the first to quit the show despite progressing to the next stage, media reports widely suggested that his sudden decision to leave caught producers by surprise.
Of those who took part, Joseph Valente would become the eventual winner, going on to use his prize to start up and expand a plumbing business called Impra-Gas. He would work together with Sugar to develop the company's business model for two years, before announcing his intentions to go solo and assume full control of the company in early 2017, with both men parting on good terms.
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During and after filming of a series of The Apprentice, production staff are required to ensure that candidates partaking in that year's contest behave appropriately off-camera. However, Selina accused two other female candidates of bullying and also criticised the conditions candidates were kept in. She accused producers on Twitter during the series' broadcast of treating her as a "pantomime villain", and refused to take part in the sister show You're Fired after her dismissal.
As a rule for those applying to take part in The Apprentice, all medical information must be made available to production staff to assess if they can take part in the series without disruption. Following his involvement in the eleventh series, Richard Woods revealed in an interview that he had not disclosed certain information, allowing him to take part despite having suffered three mini-strokes and delaying a procedure to preserve the sight in his left eye. It was later stated that, despite his non-disclosure, production staff ensure all candidates nevertheless have access to good healthcare, and that the show's doctor had seen no issues with Woods taking part in the series.
Official episode viewing figures are from BARB.