From my own experience it can be a well paid and rewarding career. It also involves working shifts although some heavy maintenance outfits run mon-fri shifts to avoid shift pay.
There are less and less jobs out there every year but also less and less engineers as the general age of maintenance engineers has crept up and many are less than 10 years from retirement or less.
Getting experience is going to be your first hurdle and getting a job without any experience is going to be an even bigger hurdle. You will almost certainly have to move to find work and will have to put up with totally crap wages until you get the experience needed. If you can put up with that and are good with your hands as well as your brain you will do ok.
I work with some younger eng's who despite having been in the business for only 5 years or so are light years ahead of some of the dinasours I work with. I've also seen quite a few fast tracked B1/B2's come and go when they realise crap working conditions and hours aren't for them. Many in fact seem to think once the licence is earnt they don't have to get their hands dirty any more.
From what i've seen and heard the Kingston course is ok and a good start if you're too old to go down the tradition RAF/Apprentice route.
To get an idea of jobs, take a look at Aviationjobsearch - despite the downturn there are still plenty of positions avaible.
I'd never put anyone off doing it for a job, I've worked up from a lowly apprentice through years and years as a technician and the last 10 years as an LAE and have never stopped learning. I even take home a decent wage these days
As for B1/B2 , my advice is to take both. If you get a grounding in both skills from the start you will be far ahead of the competition. I hold both now but am still an Avionics man at heart and only use the B2 side of things at the moment. I can see a future with only one licence though so it's something worth bearing in mind.
Good luck whatever you decide