Become a graduate
I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with some of the things www has said.
1) If, as someone doing a MA, you are able to earn £10000 a year (I know nothing about this, so I'll take that as fact) there is no way you could save £40000 in 4 years. You'd be lucky to take home £30000 in 4 years on that wage, and if you could save a third of that I'd be impressed.
2) Ok, so you can maximise your savings by living with your parents while doing this MA, but you can also do the same while going to Uni - go to a close uni and live at home.
3) Lucifer makes some good points - your builder friend may well have a good life getting something like £58k gross, of which you say he only sees about half, but that's probably about him max earning potential - most graduates I know pass this mark when they have about 4 - 6 years experience, and depending on the industry will go on to much more than this.
4) As a non-graduate you may well be able to still get well paying jobs such as these manual jobs like brick laying, chippy etc, but as a graduate you'll be able to get much more interesting work, and it the end will have a much higher earning potential.
We're all of course tailored in our opinions by the background we have, and the choices we've made, so these are just my opinion, and aren't meant to be anything against what you've said as such, just the way I see it.
If you want to fly in the future - go to university, do a course you'll enjoy, but that is academic, and if you can join a UAS. You'll have 3 of the best years in your life, and won't regret any of them. In my experience.