It's so worrying that certain people consider becoming pilots; more of a concern when you come across them stuttering through their CPL at your local FTO; and I imagine it's an even greater shock when you find them beside you in the cockpit.
Moving on...and answering the question, hopefully, after spending a small fortune on your training and passing exams and tests that are intentionally difficult (!), and spending a few years on less money, the skills and experience you will have accumulated warrant a salary of £80K per annum.
Put it this way, you're flying a piece of highly complicated machinery that is worth £50 million, carrying 150+ invaluable human-beings as SLF; you're trained over and over again to do the easy bits without thinking too much; react calmly, professionally and correctly to emergencies; and operate under intense commercial and professional pressure without realising it. I'm sure, with time, most pilots become so accustomed to their jobs that many of this becomes routine. That doesn't mean they are less deserving of their pay.
In a world where many spotty 25 year-olds make £80K gambling with other people's money in the City; a footballer with a League 2 team probably makes the same - while a talented player with a Premier League team is paid in excess of £80K a
week for kicking a ball around a park; where all manner of ordinary folk earn vast sums 'advising' others how to run their businesses even though they haven't ever run one themselves; or when, in recent years, people made their fortune advertising other people's homes and taking a ludicrously high 3% on each sale for no effort; YES, pilots earn their pay.
Just my humble opinion though.
MH 152