HAL9000
I am not aware of a complete full civilian unit operated by British companies. However, one unit set up in the last few years had trainers with both an ex-military background and fully civilian. In fact the Chief Pilot and his deputy were civilian through and through, the other two trainers were ex RAF and RN. (Pilots) The crewmen were however all ex-military although they had more civilian experience under their belts than military!
Training is in house on the units. As I mentioned in an earlier post, some new civilian crewmen have been trained but they did use SARTU for an initial basic course, the rest of their training was then done on the unit until up to the standard required (comparable with that required by military SAR units I might add).
I believe in-house training is the case for all UK civilian SAR operators currently, although there were lots of rumours around about a civilian SAR school but these seem to have gone quiet recently. Mind you, a civilian SAR school had been mooted many, many years ago by retiring military staff leaving, but never appeared to happen, except for one that went for contracts in the ME I believe. Don't think it lasted long though.
MaroonMan4
Starting salaries would currently be in the region of (dependent on experience and need for direct entry captains):
Capt: £69-73k (+ allowances)
Co-pilots: £51-54k (+ allowances)
These are at the lower bands of the pay scales I might add as I would think it very unlikely to come straight in at anything above about Year 5 for each scale. However, I am not management nor in a position anywhere close to management. You would be given better details by speaking to the relevant company's HR Department.
Allowances could be anything from accommodation, type/role specialisation, training captain, etc.
Not sure about crewmen, but their salaries are comparable with SNCO/WO salaries plus allowances I believe.