faarn- I have a very similar background to you. I left mil RW 3 yrs ago and was lucky enough to walk straight into a RW civ job. 20/20 hindsight I probably should have sat on my hands and gone FW. The RW world is a rocky ride at the moment, redundancies quite common and more pilots than jobs. FW is far more stable. You would take an initial pay cut with FW but eventually the pay ceiling is far higher than RW. Job security would be assured as well once you have some FW time under your belt. As for work/life balance.. RW possibly better, but I’d rather have a few more nights away and have job security.