A Cobham Captain pilot gave me the run down why he turned down mainline and it made a lot of sene:
Currently on ~210K per year in a lifestyle friendly job.
He estimated it’d take 22 years to make more then that at mainline and he would have to relocate multiple times.
When you consider on average every 10 years QF seems to make people redundant or reduces hours due to some sort of global event and the extra interest/extra loans ect over that period, he calculated (roughly) he’d be lucky to break even at retirement and he was only early-mid thirties.