There is, of course, another possibility? Go to university, get a good degree, work hard in a lucrative industry, receive diverse pay-offs through redundancies and take-overs, sell house in ridiculously expensive area of country and move somewhere cheap, realising enough through savings and capital to fund up to FI!
Doh! Why didn't you tell me that 5 years ago?! :P
Seriously, that was my point though. Any shortage of pilots is going to be not because the jobs aren't paid well enough at the end of it, but that it's still THE only job I can think of off the top of my head where aside from joining the military you're expected to pay a big chunk of £100k to train yourself.
I'm not saying that's a good or a bad thing, and neither am I bitching, it's just the way it is. The result though is that I really can't see there being a real 'shortage'. All a company would have to do is offer training and bang, they've got pilots. Inexperienced to start with maybe, but as long as there's enough experienced ones to go with them, c'est la vie