This is what it says on the application:

APPLICATION CLOSING DATE MIDNIGHT 19th JANUARY 2014
Please make sure you fill out all the relevant pieces of information on the form. The fields marked with an asterisk are compulsory.

Make sure you read the terms and conditions before entering.

If you are having problems with your application form please send an email plus details to; UKapprentice.applications@boundlessproductions.tv This is not an email for general enquiries. If successful the production team will be in touch regarding your interview in due course.

If your application is successful, you will be called to an interview via email on a day between 3rd and 16th Feb inclusive in either London, Manchester, Birmingham or Edinburgh. Please note that if you have not heard from us by the 27th January 2014 then you have not been successful and due to the high volume of applicants we will not contact you to let you know.

If you are successful in your first round interview, you will be called back for a second round, which will take place in London for half a day between 22nd of February and 2nd March 2014 we may not be able to give you much notice, so please plan for that now if you think you are the one!

Surely that means they will be filming through late spring, and then they will have to do all the editing - does this mean there is no more TA till Autumn 2014? I guess this kind of puts the programme on a hiatus, seeing as there is no YA anymore...

Yes, this was indicated in the last stages of Series 9. A real shame, in my view.

I recall DS publishing an article on this a while ago. It sucks...

It's been pushed back to Autumn 2014 due to avoiding a clash with the Brazil World Cup 2014. It's always a sport that disrupts the better Reality TV Shows.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/24724964

What a shame

Yes it is a pity. Oh well I guess if we want our Apprentice fix I guess it means watching the older series on Youtube I suppose.

I'm disappointed as well, but on the other hand I think that this might save the programme from being axed. I'm still enjoying it, but we can't deny that the enthusiasm from some viewers has been declining over the last couple of series. I have heard some complaints that with Young Apprentice on, the programme was 'on too much', especially as Series 6 and 7 were broadcast quite close together. Series 6 was very popular, and I think that had to do with the fact that it was the first series of the main show in quite a long time due to the election.

I will certainly miss my Apprentice fix, but if it is off air for a while, I think that Series 10 may attract lots of viewers, which could well incentivise the BBC to recommission it for an eleventh series. As for Young Apprentice - well, I think it's commonly known on this forum that I enjoyed that more than the adult show. I very much miss it, but we all know that Lord Sugar is keen to do more if the BBC would go for it. Maybe he'll be able to persuade them to bring it back at some point. (I'm not particularly expecting that to happen, but I don't think it's completely beyond the realms of possibility. It's not like a drama, that can't be brought back because the cast go off to do different things.)

If auditions are in Feb /March 2014, why did it's advert show up a few minutes ago? I got excited when I saw it, so came here to see if anyone knew. I could understand if advert showed up in Jan 2014, but we haven't had Christmas 2013 yet, so wondering why see mention of it now, with a photo of LS.

If you know spill the beans

Think it was shown again in the montage last night too

Yeah, I saw that

Puts me in the mood - so annoying that we have about 10 months to wait!

Annoying - I do love watching the World Cup, but I usually rely heavily on The Apprentice to see me through the otherwise dire spring/early summer telly.

Will there be a young apprentice this year?

Unfortunately not - there are not currently any plans for another Young Apprentice series, as the BBC decided to cancel it. I hope that at some point in the future they may revisit that decision, especially as Lord Sugar is known to be keen to do more Young Apprentice, but for the foreseeable future, there aren't likely to be any more.

If you ever have half an hour to kill, have a look at some of the Young apprentices on linkedin. There's some data on who is doing what, some surprises on who isn't doing what you might expect, and some absolutely incredible CVs, and one, alarming, claimed success from one characters...

I have looked at a few of them - who specifically are you referring to, out of curiosity?

You can see what Harry Hitchens is doing which also brings up a lot of the others in the "viewers also viewed list on the left" if you follow James then you find a link to Harry M, Arjun, Hannah, Ashleigh and Stephen . James is interesting given his final interview ambitions. Try Mahamed (Awale) and David Odhiambo too ....

The cannier other candidates have also put themselves on it even if they are continuing at university. Zara's reading English . Maria is reading law . Harry M is at the LSE, as is Tim Ankers.

I know a bit about Harry H and Zara - I follow Harry's YouTube channel, and I follow Zara on Twitter. I actually sent an email to her a while back because despite her being younger than me, I really admire and look up to her - and she replied and was really friendly, which pretty much made my week! It was on the day we got the results for one of the DSA tasks, and my team won that task - she must have been my lucky charm.

I haven't read that many of them. I know that Ashleigh is doing quite well for herself, and I believe that Steven is as well, as is Hannah Cherry. I liked Hannah - she wasn't one of the more memorable people from the first series, but I think she came across as quite bright. She had her invention that she had designed, and I thought she PMed the camping product task well.

I really didn't like Hannah, but I think it was more to do with her appalling attitude towards Rhys in the Cupcake task which made me really dislike her, I thought it was bullying in many ways. In addition, I felt that her invention made her look a bit like a joke figure. I never really rated her; the final four in that series were the right ones, imo.

I see your point about Hannah in the cupcake task, but if I remember correctly it was Tim as well, so he has to take just as much blame. I didn't see them as bullying him - I can understand why he felt picked upon, but there is a very fine line between what one person sees as bullying and another person just sees as light-hearted teasing. I don't think that Hannah and Tim did it maliciously. Also, I can see why they were frustrated, because Rhys was a pretty weak Project Manager, and came out with some pretty odd things. I remember one instance when he told Tim and Hannah that he couldn't carry two boxes at once, and they pointed out that they were doing it, and he responded, 'You're a lot taller than I am.' Which, as Hannah pointed out at once, makes no difference at all.

Maybe it makes a difference that I really didn't like Rhys - in fact, he and Adam were the only two from that series that I didn't like. Actually, when I first watched the cheese task, I wanted Jordan to go, but re-watching it since, I actually think that Rhys should have gone. I think that Jordan came across okay. His problem was that he was too arrogant, and stepped up as PM so quickly that it took time for him to find his feet and lead the team well. However, I think that he did improve; the feedback in the boardroom was that he got a lot better as the day went on. I think that had he stayed, he could have done better in the series than Rhys did. I didn't like Jordan's arrogance, but performance-wise I think he was fairly competent, especially given that he set up a business at 12 which was still going four years later, which when you think about it is a really extraordinary achievement. Rhys, on the other hand, just seemed to whine all the time without actually coming up with any solutions. I also didn't understand his height insecurities. I didn't notice him as being especially small before it was mentioned on the show. Arjun and Kirsty were both smaller than him, I think.

As for Hannah, I don't think that we can say her invention made her a joke figure without knowing what it was. On LinkedIn, she seems to be doing quite well for herself. Lord Sugar pointed out that she had some incredible academic qualifications. I think her performance on the camping task was very strong, and I really liked their product actually. I think that it was one of the best products any team has come up with on that task. (The prototype was too small, but that wasn't their fault.)

I agree that that series had the right final four though.

Ahhh, watching Series 9 right now... Really feel like a new Apprentice series right now - the nine month wait is bloody depressing

When does the world cup finish?

I randomly pick an episode to watch each week.

On rewatching Series 9 I have decided it was a bloody good series.

Personally I preferred Series 8, as it had a lot of people who I thought were good. My gripe with Series 9 was that I didn't think that there were many people who were likely winners. Other than the two finalists, Neil and Rebecca were the only other two who I think ever could have won it.

What I loved about Series 9 was that there were many story arcs that were through the series.

In weeks 2 &3, we had the girls team disintegrating and all the bitchiness, chaos, ganging up.
Then in week 5-6 we had Dr Leah in feuds with many people in her team, and allegations of sexism, and dictatorial Zee. In week 6 we also saw an alliance forming between Jordan and Luisa, and Rebecca and Francesca. Of course we know which alliance won.
In week 7, Kurt and Natalie who were both on borrowed time after many second chances and lucky escapes finally met their match and were fired.
In Week 8, we had Alex dressed as Herbert, and Jason abdicating as PM, after being stuck with Luisa and Neil on a team, resulting in Jason being fired, and in Week 9, they turned on Fran and tried to stitch her up.
Week 10 was all about showing the progression the girls had made since the chaos of the first three weeks, resulting in them winning, and Jordans ridiculous businnes plan being unearthed.
This culminated in Week 11, with Jordan being savaged and instatnly fired, and Neil, one of the favourites, being fired regretfully, due to his business plan.

Series 8 had dull candidates, dull tasks, and not a lot happened in general. Also the final five were genuinely the worst, in terms of entertainment final five ever.

Personally I liked Series 8 because I prefer to see candidates doing well than screwing up, but in terms of entertainment, I disagree about Series 8 having dull candidates. I thought that Adam, Gabrielle and Ricky were very watchable, and all for different reasons. Adam initially came across as really bad, but somehow grew on everyone, had some really strong tasks and got to the final five. Gabrielle was possibly the nicest candidate ever. Ricky initially seemed like one of those really arrogant but not that brilliant alpha-males that they have every series, but he ultimately went on to win.

I found there to be quite a lot of entertaining scenes as well, such as:
-Bilyana's supreme confidence that she knew where the shops were, before taking the girls on a really long walk.
-Jane thinking that she could sell 1,000,000 units of Splish Splash to Amazon.
-Katie running around in a pizza outfit trying to sell meatballs.
-Azhar's repeated use of the word 'strategy'.
-The brilliant advert, 'Ugh! It's horrible! This isn't the English sparkling wine I ordered!'
Also, there was the ongoing love/hate relationship between Adam and Jade.

Another thing about Series 8 was it had really good red herrings - better than any other series, I think. The first episode was very much set up to make it look as though Katie would be fired, and it was quite a shock when he suddenly went for Bilyana instead. After that, Katie looked like she'd be the series redemption arc, but didn't go that much further. Jane and Duane also looked like they'd go quite a long way, but fell early. By contrast, Adam and Jenna came across as though they'd be early casualties, but they both lasted for ages. And in the final, I did not think that Ricky would win. I thought it would be Nick, with Jade as a strong backup choice, but they were actually the first two to go in the finale. And Ricky had a business plan so good that even Claude had something nice to say about it, and he was a surprisingly satisfying winner.

I think that Series 8 had a lot going for it, but I know that it's not one of the more popular series.