Alan Sugar says he has no plans to retire from Apprentice and ‘hang up his finger’

Lord Alan Sugar has shed light on whether he’s thought about retirement plans – insisting that he’ll carry on making seasons of The Apprentice for “as long as the BBC wants me to”.

The 78-year-old recently signed a new contract that means he will feature in at least three more series of the business reality show. Speaking to The Mirror, Lord Sugar joked: “Part of the contract is the BBC has got to provide me with an electronic Zimmer frame!”

“I mean, three years takes me to about 82 I suppose, [by] the time I'm finished, but I'll carry on as long as the BBC want me to,” he continued. “And I will know personally when it’s time for me to kind of hang up my finger, if you know what I mean.

“As the footballers say, they hang up their boots, hang up my finger or something. I’m happy about it. I’m a very fit person.”

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The Apprentice will this week return for its 20th series and this time around, there are 20 candidates vying for the grand prize: a £250,000 investment from Lord Sugar. The hopefuls include a mortgage broker who says Kim Kardashian is her role model and an actor who has a touring theatrical production company.

The inaugural episode will see the candidates thrown in at the deep end as they’re flown to Hong Kong for a buying challenge – and they’ll be shocked as Lord Sugar himself turns up there.

“The thinking behind it was it’s the 20th series and what can we do that's different?” he previously explained. “So I thought, ‘Well, why don't I jump on a plane and surprise them in Hong Kong?’ It’s not as if I’m surprising them in Hounslow or something like that. They didn't know I was there.

“So all of a sudden they come into this boardroom and there I am. So that was a nice surprise for them. They were surprised but they weren't unhappy with it – maybe a little excited.”

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This year’s other tasks include creating a children’s book, selling products live on television, and orchestrating a corporate away day on the Red Sea in El Gouna, Egypt, testing their entrepreneurial mettle in diverse environments.

Business mogul Lord Sugar will be supported by his trusted advisors, Tim Campbell, who won the first series of The Apprentice back in 2005, and West Ham United vice-chairman Baroness Karren Brady.

The Apprentice returns on Thursday 29 January at 9pm, on BBC One and iPlayer.