List of The Apprentice candidates (UK) series two

Nargis Ara (born 1967, Bangladesh) has an honours degree in pharmacy and is a PhD student. She was the most highly educated of all the contestants, although her experience lay mainly in pharmaceutical research. She was fired in week 2 after deciding to use cats as the theme for a children's charity calendar and displaying poor sales skills during the task. It has since been revealed by contestant Alexa Tilley that the team were given no choice in this matter, a fact that was not revealed to the television audience.

Ruth Badger

Ruth Badger (born 1978) implies that she has 3 GCSEs (in week 11 she stated that she and Michelle had 5 GCSEs and no degrees between them, and that this demonstrates how they are self-made). She was previously employed as a sales manager. Badger was the runner-up, reaching the final. Badger had her own programme called Badger or Bust.

Karen Bremner

Karen Bremner (born 6 November 1971) obtained a diploma in legal practice and a Bachelor of Laws degree and was previously employed as a lawyer. She was born in Canada. Bremner was considered to be the shock firing of this series when she was dismissed in Episode 3 with the line "I don't need another corporate lawyer." Bremner had a number of radio and television appearances and was the business correspondent for Scottish talk radio station Talk107. Bremner now owns a boutique, karenB, based in Broughty Ferry in Scotland, for which she has won a Young Entrepreneurial Company of the Year award.

Jo Cameron

Jo Cameron was previously self-employed, and prior to that had worked at specialising in improving the position of women in male-dominated industries. She also has a career as a professional speaker and is a regular media commentator. In 2008, she was the winner of a special charity EDition of The Weakest Link, featuring previous candidates of The Apprentice. She beat Series 3 candidate Kristina Grimes in the final round, after only one question was answered correctly between the two of them.

Michelle Dewberry

Michelle Dewberry has two GCSEs as well as professional qualifications. She currently lives in London but her roots are in Hull. From her first job working the checkouts in Kwik Save, she rose through the business ranks in various different firms to become a global project manager. She claimed to already earn the £100,000 salary offered by the show from her consultancy in telecommunications offshoring, and said that she wanted to become Sir Alan's apprentice for the experience rather than the money.

Dewberry went on to win the series, beating rival Ruth Badger in the final. Dewberry's first assignment for Sir Alan was to launch Xenon Green, a business that disposes of unwanted computer equipment. However, she and Sir Alan parted company in September 2006.

She had a romantic relationship with fellow contestant Sayed Ahmed and became pregnant by him. In August 2006 they lost the baby, who died before birth.

Ansell Henry

Ansell Henry left school at the age of 16 to join Millwall F.C. and was on their books as a professional footballer. However, injury cut short his career and he found employment as a door-to-door salesman. He was born in South London but currently lives in Brighton. He says that he is a good all-rounder and gets on well with people. As one of the least educated contestants he joined the competition for a challenge. On the show Ansell gained a reputation as a "nice guy", reaching the final three before being dismissed.

Samuel Judah

Samuel Judah has a degree in manufacturing engineering and his previous employment was as a Product Innovation Manager at Ford Motor Company. Before appearing on The Apprentice he spent 11 years at Ford Motor Company in Engineering, Manufacturing and Business Strategy.After be brought to the boardroom in the first week he claimed victory as project manager in week 2 of the series. He was dismissed in the seventh week of the process.

Tuan Le

Tuan Le (generally pronounced Dun) was born 11 January 1979. He has 9 GCSEs and 2 A Levels, and before the show worked as a financial advisor. He had previously worked for the Nationwide Building Society, eventually becoming a financial consultant, and as a lacer for Clarks Shoes.

Sharon McAllister

Sharon McAllister (born 1 June 1975) has a BA in Corporate Communication and worked previously as a business lecturer. On March 5, 2008 Sharon launched sit1.tv, Scotland's first Internet television station. McAllister is known around the Stirling area for once dating local celebrity and D.J. Stuart Chalmers. She was also well known for her stylish outfits and would regularly wear tight figure-hugging leather trousers which made her a real style icon.

Mani Sandher

Mani Sandher has a BSc in physics and was previously employed as a management consultant. He lives in London and admits that he "can be a perfectionist". He has set up two profitable businesses although he is now a silent partner in one of them.

Ben Stanberry

Ben Stanberry was educated at the Salesian College in Hampshire, has bachelor's and master's degrees in law and worked previously as an academic at Cardiff University and as a management consultant. Prior to appearing on the show, Ben had successfully battled advanced colorectal cancer, from which he'd been given only a 30% chance of survival. After appearing on the show he went on to become the commercial and legal director of a healthcare company and was elected as a Conservative councillor, representing Barnes in the London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames. He is presently studying for an Executive MBA at the world-ranked Henley Business School alongside Series Four finalist Helene Speight.

Alexa Tilley

Alexa Tilley was born in London on 22 September 1977 and prior to the show was a management consultant. She entered the contest for the business opportunity and the chance to learn from Alan Sugar. Although Alexa has a BA in economics from Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, she was most notable for her failings in the economics of a successful pizza business for which she got fired for.

Paul Tulip

Paul Tulip (born 1 October 1979) has a degree in Business and Sport and had a career as a head hunter. Paul got through to the interview stage, winning seven of the ten tasks he was involved in (more than anyone else that series) and was the only person in the second series to both win two tasks as project manager, and avoid being taken into the boardroom 'final three'. Despite this, Paul was described as "arrogant" and "cocky" by the interviewers, leading to Sir Alan firing Paul almost instantly when it came to deciding who to put through to the final.