You will find that a first officers average first 3 year wage packet is less then £30,000 per annum. Take into account that they will have spent the preceding 2+ years training and studying without a wage and paying between £50-100k for flight training. Then you will start to see pilots are not very well paid.
The figures you quote I'm guessing are from the standard industrial joke known as "The high pay airline". Ryanair expect their pilots to pay around £20,000 upon joining to pay for their 737 training, they then force most of them to become contract pilots through Brookfield. Do a search but if I can remember correctly, the net pay for your 1st year in Ryanair is approx £4000!
While studying at Uni I didn't see any Proffs/Doc with tatoos or piercings?
Probably because they covered them up.
