STRAIGHT-talking Lee McQueen is the surprise winner of hit TV show The Apprentice.

STRAIGHT talking Lee McQueen is the surprise winner of hit TV show The Apprentice.

The popular 30-year-old was hired by Sir Alan Sugar at the end of an exhaustive process and will now start in the much-coveted £100,000-a-year job.

Lee, the son of a milkman who admitted lying on his CV in last week's show, was an outsider in the race to win Sir Alan's approval.

Feisty retail worker Claire Young was the favourite to clinch the job, while laid-back sales manager Alex Wotherspoon and determined pricing leader Helene Speight offered further tough competition.

But, after the final task - which saw the candidates given a week to create a male fragrance - Speight and Wotherspoon were the first to get the chop and Lee faced Claire in a final boardroom showdown before clinching the plum job.

Lee, famed for his 'reverse pterodactyl' impression, has just eight GCSE's and a BTEC diploma - proving that education is not necessarily the key to securing a top post.

He will now begin work in one of Sir Alan's companies.