Easy or FCA is a hard one. Easyjet you'll get a much earlier command, but then once you have it, you will spend the rest of your career doing short haul )although admittedly no night flights). With FCA there is always the possibility of long haul, although you can't only do long haul. Otherwise, not a lot in it!
As for schedules, this past summer its mainly been 6 on, 2 off, with some 7 day blocks (very few). An example, in October I had just under 100 hours block time rostered and 7 days off for the month. Also, one of the pairs of days off I had a lateish finish before, and a 6.30am start after. This is not unusual. In the winter we have a reciprocal agreement with a Canadian airline and a number of our pilots depart for Canada for the winter. This of course helps FCA make money, but does mean that the era of quiet winters has passed. I expect to be doing around 70 hours some months in the winter, although you usually get one, maybe two quiet months where not much happens.
There is a limit of 800 hours before overtime kicks in, but they will most likely stop you flying rather than pay you overtime.
I've not done many standbys this year at all - most flights where I was weren't covered, but if you get them then they are 6 hours and done from home (need to get to airport 1.5 hours after being called).
Night flights - varies from base to base. Minimum I would think is around 3 or 4 a month of deep night flights, ie. starting at 11pm or starting at 5/6pm and then back anything up to 8am. Night flights are usually rostered at the end of the run of 6 days on, and usually you do 2 or 3 in a row. There is a total mix of earlies/ lates before the nights. If you do this at least you get an early finish before your days off.
To pick up on ott's comments. We have private health insurance (pay extra for partner/ kids). The regular sick pay, PHI and Loss of Licence are all "self-insured" by First Choice. There are exclusions, certainly on sick pay and LoL that restrict what they will pay for - eg. if you doing anything that they may consider to be risky then they may not meet the claim. The way the policies are written, that could include things like skiing. sailing or quad biking. The private medical insurance doesn't have these extra restrictions. So whether having these policies is a benefit depends on what you do outside of work.
We get day off payments. Its basic salary/224 x 1.5 per day.
You get 104 days off per year, unless you've sold any back to the company.
Flight pay is £2.46 per hour, payable for block times. No sector pay, which I think is what Easy get.
We have a scheduling agreement but it doesn't give block roster protection like Britannia or MyTravel have. You can also be rostered to work earlies after days off (no choice) but the company has to give you £25-75 for it (before tax).
Leave. We get 37 days off (including days in lieu of bank holidays). Max 20 days off in summer. You have to book leave in blocks of 4 days off, and the blocks are pre-determined. So if you want to go on holiday from Sat-Sat in August then you have to see which dates the blocks start on a Saturday. It also means you need to know where you are going on holiday about a year in advance.
There are also RDOs which you can book 3 a month, max. 26 days a year, max 14 per season and only 6 per season at weekends (if you book a Fri, Sat or Sun then you have to book an adjacent day as well, you can't take a single weekend day off).
Pensions. There is a money purchase in operation which is OK, but I think Britannia might still be offering final salary scheme.
Hope this helps!!
I know of people who've left us to go to EasyJet but I don't know of anyone who has come the other way (presumably because we've not been recruiting).