The Apprentice (UK TV Series) - Filming Locations

Filming Locations

The tasks are mostly filmed in and around the London area, though the contestants have on occasion been sent as far afield as France, the Mediterranean and Morocco. In Series One, the team house was located in Chiswick. A location in Hampstead Heath was used in Series Two and another in Notting Hill for the third series. In Series Four, the candidates' accommodation was a converted glass factory in Battersea and in Series 5, the candidates lived in a penthouse house at Portobello Lofts, Ladbroke Grove. In Series 6, the candidates lived in Bedford Square and in Series 7, they lived in an 8 bedroom mansion in East Sheen. In Series 8, they lived in a town house in Porchester Terrace, Bayswater.

The Apprentice regularly features clips of aerial footage over the skyscrapers of the Square Mile and Canary Wharf financial districts, such as the 180-metre Gherkin, HSBC Tower, One Canada Square, the Citigroup Centre, although neither Amstrad or Alan Sugar has offices in any of these locations. More recently, aerial footage has included skyscrapers outside these districts, namely Strata SE1, in Elephant and Castle, and Shard London Bridge, in Southwark. For the series introduction, and for the post-firing "walk of shame" exit sequences the Amstrad HQ building in Brentwood was used in Series 1–3. Following Amstrad's sale to BSkyB in 2007 this changed to the Viglen HQ building in St Albans, Hertfordshire from Series 4 onward – this location is also used for the Week 11 interviews task.

The "boardroom" (and the reception area outside) is in fact a custom-built set in a West London television studio, and the boardroom receptionist ("Frances" in Series One, Three, Four and Five, "Jenny" in Series Two) is an employee at the production company Talkback Thames, not Sugar's real secretary. However, Sugar's actual PA is called Frances.

The candidates' "walk of shame" exit sequences are actually filmed at the beginning of the series, at the same time as the scene in which they are shown entering the headquarters building at the start of the first episode. This explains why the clothes worn by fired candidates in their exit sequences sometimes differ from those worn in the boardroom scene ostensibly filmed only moments earlier. In more noticeable cases, hairstyles have also been different. The post-firing taxi ride merely takes the candidate around the block to allow their taxi interview to be filmed. They are then taken to a local hotel to stay the night and finally leave after packing their belongings from the house.