If it is recognition that you are looking for, why not join the RAeS, and get an MRAeS / FRAeS in recognition of your experience and/or professional licence.
A degree is for academic study; a flying licence is a vocational and regulatory qualification. While the HE system in the UK may have sullied the distinction between the two (while failing to provide useful vocational qualifications for many...), it still remains the case that there is no element of (a) research, (b) independent reading, (c) academic debate and argument, or (d) experimentation in a licencing regime. God forbid if there were experimental test pilots all over the skies!
The point is, if you want to hold a degree, there are means of doing so in extension to work - City Uni for example, or the MSc in Air Transport Mgmt might all be of interest to those who have a further interest in academia beyond the day job.