Stacey Dooley takes five 16-18 year olds into different industries crying out for young workers for the ultimate work experience. They kick off their journey in a Gordon Ramsay restaurant in London, where head chef Davide and front of house manager Roberto agree to mentor them over two days, giving them hands-on experience with real customers. Both of them have worked their way up in the restaurant business over 20 years and are passionate about the industry they love, and they expect reliability and a strong work ethic from anyone working alongside them. How will the five teens handle this opportunity to pick up tips from such great mentors? 

For some, it’s a complete shock to the system, and for others it’s a chance to revel in learning some top-notch hospitality skills in this gourmet Italian restaurant. If they deserve it, Stacey pays them the national apprenticeship wage of £3.70 an hour at the end of each day, but they are surprised to discover that deductions are made for living expenses in the capital. Stacey has provided the five with accommodation, but she is expecting them to live off their earnings as well as to shop and cook for themselves. 

Hospitality is multibillion-pound industry and is the fourth biggest employer in the UK, relying on an army of workers to keep going and encompassing restaurants, hotels, theme parks and leisure facilities. A lot of the work here is front of house, and you really do need to know how to interact with members of the public who are spending their own hard-earned money in their leisure time. Some of our teens struggle to find the confidence to engage with strangers and prefer to head to the kitchen to learn from top chef Davide. Others find cleaning even more of a challenge, and there are words have to be had with Davide and Roberto

Stacey Dooley takes five 16-18-year-olds into different industries crying out for young workers for the ultimate work experience. 

This episode sees Stacey take five teenagers for work experience in a care home on the Somerset coast. The privately owned care home is in Weston-super-Mare, a retirement hotspot where a fifth of the population is over 65. With 400,000 people living in care homes across the country, it’s a sector looking for young workers in a variety of roles to help with an increasingly ageing population. 

How will Elliott, Skye, Abbey, Hakeem and Mersadi cope with tending to the needs of the home’s 30 residents, who are aged up to 107 years old? At the end of each day, Stacey rewards those who do well in cash with the national apprenticeship wage of £3.70 and at night she provides the teens with caravan accommodation. Living together becomes a bit of a struggle as those with cash from their shifts in the restaurant have to chip in for those who haven’t been paid the full rate so far. 

Care home managers Claire and Shari are looking for energy, enthusiasm, patience and empathy from the teens and the five will be involved in every aspect of care during their time there. As well as serving meals, cleaning rooms and taking part in the social activities put on for the residents, they are encouraged to bond with individual residents and make new friends. Surprising relationships blossom between young and old as they each look for common experiences and pastimes, which go beyond any age differences between them.

Stacey Dooley takes five 16-18 year olds into different industries crying out for young workers, for the ultimate work experience. 

In this episode, she takes them to Sunderland to experience life at one of the country’s biggest contact centres. Elliot, Mersadi, Skye, Abbey and Hakeem join the 650 customer experience representatives taking calls on car, home and life insurance. Their first day is spent with some of the company’s specialist trainers, who can quickly assess the five’s ability to speak to complete strangers. At night, the team are asked to go even further out of their comfort zone when they are invited to attend and take part in the company’s annual lip sync battle. 

The contact centre industry is one of the fastest growing in the UK, providing thousands of opportunities for young apprenticeships, and with 60,000 calls being made each week it’s a job that requires good communication skills. During their first day, boss Mark sets them various exercises which will show him who is naturally confident on the phone and which of the teens can bring their personality to the job while keeping it professional. If they do well, Stacey will reward them at the end of the day in cash, with the national apprenticeship rate of £3.70 per hour. They really need the money as they are all still living together, and if one person doesn’t get paid, then the others have to chip in to pay for their food

Stacey Dooley takes five 16-18 year olds into different industries crying out for young workers, for the ultimate work experience. 

In this episode, they try out the manufacturing industry, visiting a high-end trainer factory near Carlisle. The teens are initially taken aback by the number of jobs done by hand and by the complexity of the production process. However, as each one is then set to work on key stages of the trainer manufacturing, it’s not long before things start to fall apart. With bosses Michael and Gary expecting high-quality work to match their high-quality products, there is no room for error, and when two of the team don’t take the job seriously, tensions quickly flare within the group. 

Back at their house in the countryside, things boil over when some members of the group yet again have to bail out those who cannot pay their way. They have all been in each other’s pockets for nearly ten days and living and working together is proving to be more of a challenge than any of them had expected. Stacey makes a trip to the house to see if she can help to smooth things over and get them back to working as a team. There will be highs and lows - should they stick with study or join the daily grind?

Stacey Dooley takes five 16-18-year-olds into different industries crying out for young workers, for the ultimate work experience. 

The last episode in the series sees Stacey take the five teenagers to Heathrow Airport for their last piece of work experience. It’s a baptism of fire for Skye, Hakeem, Elliott, Mersadi and Abbey as they begin working land and airside for one of the UK’s largest single-site employers. As they split up across the airport, some of the teens head to the engineering department to work on the airport’s driverless electric pods, while others check the facilities in the terminal with a site engineer and work with Heathrow’s customers. The airport currently employs 76,000 staff and 5,000 apprentices, but with Heathrow set for expansion, the teens need to be at their best to impress airport boss Emma. 

There will be highs and lows, but after five different workplaces, should they stick with study or join the daily grind? What have they learned from The Nine to Five?

Stacey takes five teenagers to London Zoo for their first job on her ultimate work-experience challenge. If Sharif, Allina, Louis, Kieran and Louisa do well they will earn the national apprenticeship wage at the end of every day. However, if they fail to shine, they may go home empty-handed. All they have to do is spend two days working hard as a zoo keeper and impress their boss - what could possibly go wrong? 

The teens start off by doing two of the keepers’ regular daily tasks - feeding and cleaning out the animals - and it all has to be done thoroughly and quickly before the zoo opens to the public. They have already been set some personal goals by recruitment consultant Ricky Martin - does their behaviour on their first job come anywhere near those high standards?

Stacey takes five teenagers to one of the UK’s big construction companies for work experience. How will Sharif, Allina, Louis, Kieran and Louisa handle two days of manual labour with one of the strictest bosses in the business? Time for them find out if bricklaying is something they can turn their hands to alongside the professionals. Are there any budding house builders in the group? 

As they get going on site early in the morning, it’s soon obvious that some of the team are struggling to keep up. However, one of the teens discovers that they are in their element and the building site feels like home from home! For the rest, the range and skills they need to master house building continues to be a huge challenge, and the boss steps in with some serious on-the-job advice.

Stacey takes five teenagers to do work experience in a vast salad farm in north London. The five find themselves among the cucumbers in 35 acres of greenhouses during one of the hottest weeks of the year. Can they pick the perfect cucumber and get hundreds of them wrapped and packed ready to meet a succession of supermarket orders? It sounds simple enough! However, for some of the group, picking cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes is not their idea of fruitful employment and boss Vince is unimpressed with the work ethic on show. 

Stacey takes five teens for work experience at one of the country’s largest plumbing companies. How will they handle cleaning drains and getting to grips with the basics of pipework? 

The news that you can earn over £100k as a plumber definitely focuses the minds of the whole team. All five teens need to show boss Ashley they have the skills, commitment and the work ethic to succeed, and the competition between them heats up to win the chance to work alongside him for real customers. 

On the following day it’s time for their GCSE results, but who will get some much-needed good news from home?

The five teens finish their work experience running their own stall at an East End market ahead of Ricky Martin. Stacey wants to see how they will work together as a team to set up their own stall and try to shift their stock before the day is out. However, when they see the professionals bagging all the customers around them, will they have what it takes to quickly master the key market trader skills of pricing, selling and displaying? 

They don’t get off to a good start, taking two hours to decide on a price strategy, but with a little bit of help they start to turn things around, and Stacey is standing by ready to pay them if they make a profit by the end of the day.