Want a job? Then don’t get a tattoo, warns Sugar aide

THE craze for tattoos is a ‘real problem’ that is damaging young people’s job prospects, Lord Sugar’s former right-hand woman warned yesterday.

Margaret Mountford, 64, has urged parents to stop youngsters getting permanent body art which she says could ruin their careers.

Around one in five people has a tattoo in Britain, rising to one in three for young adults.

‘They are a real problem for young people because there are swathes of the workplace where it is simply not appropriate to be greeted by a young person with a tattoo,’ Mrs Mountford said. ‘In a reception area of a major company you do not want to be met by a young person with a tattoo up their arm.’

The businesswoman, who read law at Cambridge and became famous as one of Lord Sugar’s sidekicks on his TV show the Apprentice, has even refused to have her hair washed by a stylist with tattoos.

According to the Sunday Times, Mrs Mountford said: ‘[Young people’s] parents should have given them guidance that they should not have acquired that tattoo because it means they will always have to wear long sleeves in the office if they want to be hired.’

Mrs Mountford, who was speaking at the £34,000-a-year girls’ boarding school Benenden, in Kent, also warned that many youngsters lacked basics such as literacy skills, punctuality, making eye contact and being able to work in teams.