The entrepreneur small business owners would most like to hire as their apprentice is Sir Richard Branson, followed by Sir Alan Sugar and Sir James Dyson.

According to research by SIPP provider James Hay, 42% of British bosses would choose to employ the Virgin boss, compared to 12% opting for Sugar and 5% for Dyson.

“Who better to have as apprentices than two people who left school to build multi million pound business empires from the ground up?” said Shaun Sandiford, regional director at James Hay.

“Entrepreneurs clearly recognise and respect the abundance of self-motivation and drive that it took to get these two figureheads to where they are today.”

The survey also claimed the five most important qualities for an entrepreneur are self-motivation (cited by 95%), being prepared to work hard (93%), self-discipline (88%), professionalism (87%) and confidence (87%).

But innovation – which was a key factor when Sugar opted for Simon Ambrose rather than Kristina Grimes in the third series of The Apprentice – failed to make the top five, although it was still seen as an important quality by 86%.