Angie is unfairly dismissed from her job in a recruitment agency after publicly humiliating a client who has touched her inappropriately. It's the latest in a string of unsuccessful jobs that have ended badly so she decides to go into business for herself. Operating from a pub backyard, she sets up 'Angie & Rose Recruitment' with her flatmate. The company enjoys initial success by drumming up trade with Angie's former clients, undercutting other agencies and avoiding tax. The hard work, however, distances her from her 11-year-old son Jamie, who currently lives with his grandparents and is causing trouble at school. Angie argues with her parents about Jamie's custody, explaining to them that she is working towards getting a new place for them to live in together.

Angie and Rose's business continues to thrive, thanks in part to Angie's non-nonsense attitude and an over-supply of workers. But the partners begin to exploit their employees, safe in the knowledge that they can easily replace them. Angie takes pity on Mahmoud, an Iranian living illegally with his family and hiding from British authorities to avoid extradition and imprisonment. She finds him a home on an illegal caravan site and finds him work. He is one of many illegal workers Angie is now employing at profit. Meanwhile, Rose has devised a scheme whereby they can rent out a house to two sets of workers, rotating beds according to their shift pattern.

Jamie seems to be settling at school, but he and Angie's father are appalled at her working practises when they mistakenly visit her at the pub. Her father complains that her risky entrepreneurial ways are simply exploiting European workers desperate for a job. Angie ignores his warnings. Later, however, a deal goes badly wrong when one of her major employers fails to pay a substantial sum owed to her workers. Since the debtor is a criminal outfit, Angie has no legal means of getting the money she is owed and begins to receive threats from the employees who have worked without pay. Rose leaves the business when she is attacked at home and witnesses Angie's desperate actions to retrieve the money. Meanwhile Angie, needing a place to accommodate a new group of illegal workers, reports the caravan site that houses Mahmoud to the Immigration Service and causes their eviction.

Business continues without Rose but Angie still owes money. Jamie visits his mum one evening but vanishes when he goes to answer the front door. Angie is suddenly attacked in her home by Jamie's kidnappers and tied up. They threaten to hurt Jamie if she does not return the £40,000 she owes her workers. They take a sum of money earned from Rose's flat rental scheme but promise to return if the remainder of the money she owes does not materialise. Jamie is returned unharmed and seemingly oblivious to the danger he was in. Angie flies to the Ukraine, now abandoning any scruples, and actively recruits illegal workers for employment in the UK.