I wouldn't worry too much about commuting from Southern Europe to LHR. These days I'm surprised when everyone on the flight deck lives in the UK. We've got hundreds of pilots living abroad, a large proportion of them in Nice, Toulouse, Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga or Alicante. Someone once told me we've got about 2000 flight and cabin crew in the Barcelona area alone and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it was true.