What!!
It's never too late to start a new career, but you will have to ask yourself a few questions.
Do you want to work unsociable hours? most places work shifts, and by going back over some of the posts on this site, you can see the sort of thing people have to put up with.
Do you want recogmition for your effort? If you do, then forget it. Engineers are very often thought of as a necessary evil and lower down the food chain than aircrew and so not as important. This is vlatantly not true, however I have never worked in a company that treats engineers as well as pilots.
If you are starting from scratch, I would suggest going down the avionic route as opposed to Engines/airframe simply because the majority of the jobs are cleaner, and pay is better. That said, you have to pass more exams.
In the UK as a licensed Engineer salaries vary in the region 20-30K, plus overtime and sometimes bonuses (?). As a licensed contractor you get paid on an hourly basis which is currently £24-30 an hour, depending on licence coverage and type of aircraft approval you have.
An unlicensed fitter is earning around £12-13 an hour at the moment. It may be worth your while trying to get a fitters job for a few months to see if you like the job. 99% of these jobs are hangar based, so you get to know a bit about the aircraft as a whole, but the downside is that as a contractor, the company employing you is not bound to give you any sort of type courses.
Flight International has a job section in the back of it, and a list of agencies that can find you a contract or permanent job. A lot of these have web pages you can look up too.
I haven't woked for a UK air;ine for a few years, but when I did, I was on £22k as a fully rated avionic engineer. I now earn as much in a week as I used to in a month as a contractor, and I like my job.
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NO FAULT FOUND