Let’s be honest – no Apprentice 2026 candidate stood a chance against Karishma Vijay, arguably the best contestant the BBC show has ever had.

The 29-year-old beauty brand owner won Lord Sugar’s £250,000 investment for her skincare business, which she launched after discovering a “cure” for her acne – and it was glaringly inevitable from week one. In all 20 years of the show, there has not been a contestant who has exuded such likeability, justifiable confidence, and, believe it or not, common sense.

Not even her finale rival Pascha Myhill, whose evolution throughout the series was a joy to watch, could rival Karishma. Pascha – the show’s youngest contestant at 21 – was seeking investment for her recruitment business and, in the last episode, nailed a pitch to a room filled with business experts, which, by her own admission, she would not have been able to do at the start of the competition.

But while Pascha had the journey element on her side, Karishma hit her stride from the outset. Whenever Lord Sugar briefed the candidates on the weekly tasks, she would digest the information, scan it like a business RoboCop, and by the time she went to chat with her team, she knew exactly what they should do. When it came to performing the tasks, Karishma would never retreat to the background and would be the first one to suggest workarounds to obstacles that tripped others up.

It felt as if Karishma had studied every series of The Apprentice and followed a guidebook on how to succeed on the show – but here’s the catch: she’s never watched it before. “I can’t believe I’ve gone and done it after not having watched the show, I feel like that’s so cheeky,” she said after winning.

Karishma was that rare Apprentice candidate – someone whose pieces to camera came across as confident as opposed to arrogant, perhaps because she had the know-how to back it up. And in her final pitch, she had the crowd of experts in stitches. (The pun-loving Sugar called her “a stand-up comedian”.) In fact, the applause was so rapturous it felt like she might get a standing ovation. “Honestly, I think I’ll buy whatever she’s selling,” one expert told Sugar after.

The Apprentice has faced criticism for feeling increasingly irrelevant in recent years, and starring a cast of doofuses, but Karishma – a genuinely talented businesswoman – felt like a good rebuttal. If the show can find more candidates like her, then those claims should fall away. “I feel really proud because when I came into this, I felt like a small fish,” Karishma said at the end of the show, a cheeky grin creeping onto her face. “I’m not a small fish no more.”

Viewers are in huge agreement over Karishma’s victory, taking to social media to declare her “a very worthy winner” of The Apprentice and “the best candidate in the HISTORY of the show”.

“Well done, Karishma… a well-deserved win,” one commenter wrote, while another echoed: “I’ve been rooting for Karishma since the beginning. What an excellent winner and probably the best Apprentice series in years.”

One comment read: “Lord Sugar knows ball. Karishma was a breath of fresh air throughout. Loved her as a person and her business looked phenomenal. Her business pitch was one of the very best ever seen on #TheApprentice. She was head and shoulders above absolutely all of them.”

“As someone who has watched all 20 seasons of The Apprentice, I can confidently say that Karishma [is] not just the best winner, but best candidate in the history of the show. There’s no contest. There has never been someone as talented, creative and intelligent as her,” another fan commented.

Even the cynics were converted, with one saying: “I normally watch The Apprentice to take the p*** out of a bunch of wannabes who should be nowhere near business. Karishma was undoubtedly the best candidate I’ve seen in the 20 years of the series.”

Hats off to Karishma for raising the bar – and bringing worth back to a long-running format.