I am a just out of trsining pilot and one of the lucky few who got a sponsorship, with the current climate however I have been on hold. The company put me on work experience in ops during my training (between exams and flight training) and events transpired that I ended up working in ops full time until such a time as a course comes up.
What I mean to say is that I joined the ops team with no ops experience (but more than a passing interest in the aviation industry) and have managed to pick up all I need through on the job training. There are training courses in the UK also such as UKOMA (UK Ops Managers Association) which cover all facets of ops from crewing to flight planning and the like.
From the avionics maintenance point of view christ if our engineers can do it them surely you can, especially if you have worked in the development area first (you probably trained on the crap most airlines are still using today)
Hope it all works out and bear in mind that the south coast isn't as horribly expensive as you think and there are more jobs down here in BOH/SOU anf the london airports.
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