Son, I don't think any of these threads actually conveys how bad things are in the industry at the moment, so here are some pointers from personal experience:
1) Puleeeez listen to WWW's words (seek out his threads)
2) My company is about to announce approx. 150 Airbus pilot redundancies
3) Another company is about announce approximately 100 redundancies
4) My desert get-out-clause has just closed due to point 3's people getting in ahead of me (this doesn't even include the people within my own company that I am up against)
5) The UK industry is in severe shrinkage
6) The Communist, sorry Labour government is determined to kill off the industry citing "environ-mental" concerns, by taxing it out existence (using Air Pax Duty and including the airlines in the carbon trading stupidity). I don't see the Consmurfartive government being any better. Long term thinking does not reside in the British political gene pool.
7) Even going back to my old engineering career is looking very hairy.
8) I haven't even mentioned the companies that have already gone under (do some research on this)
I am not one to discourage anyone from pursuing their ambitions, but get your PPL, have some fun and get this "I wanna be an airline pilot, daddy" nonsense out of your noodles.