I got my CPL/IR/MCC in 2004. After a year getting nowhere fast with 200 hours I decided in the autumn of 2005 to do a Flying Instructor course on a part time basis at the weekends. I thoroughly enjoyed the course, it was hard work lots of reading but a lot of fun although the weather did it's best to drag things out that winter!
Six months later I had my FI rating in my license and a month later I was parked up in my delivery van one Friday lunchtime having a snooze when the phone rang. It was the Ops Manager from the flying club I had been a member at for several years since I got my PPL. "Have you got your Instructor rating issued yet?" she asked. "Yes it arrived yesterday". "Do you want a job for three months working saturday's and sunday's?". "Too bloody right I do, when do you want me to start?". "9am tomorrow".
Well ten months later I am still there both days every weekend. Between May and December last year I added 120 hours to my log book flying at the weekends. I cant afford to be a full time instructor - I have a mortgage now but through Instructing I earn't enough money to keep my multi and IR current and have enough left over to do my Night Instructors qualification (nice way to add some IFR hours is teaching Night Rating). By the end of this weekend I will have flown nearly 50 hours already this year.
Instructing is good fun, it improves your flying skills and it gives great personal satisfaction seeing your students progress as a resulf of your own efforts and encouragement.
So if you could afford all that money to get the CPL/IR can you not somehow find another £5000 to do an FI course? Even if your hubby just works weekends instructing for a couple of years he will have moved his CV further up the pile.
And the reason Transeuro say you need 700hrs to work for them is that it is a regulation that to fly single pilot IFR you need 700hrs.
Now I know somebody who got a job with them because he built up his hours Instructing. Several of their pilots have gone on to get turboprop jobs. And I know someone who got a job on the A320 with a very respectable outfit because the had turboprop time.
So from small acorns etc.....
Good luck, chin up and as we say at my club "don't just sit there - get one up!"