As ever,
Bealzebub's answer is pretty definitive, but few more thoughts:
Are CTC\Oxford Aviation the main schemes available to people in the UK (outside specific airline schemes)?
God no, although they would like you to believe it, and their sales people might well leave you with that impression. There are dozens of flight schools where you can train to CPL/IR standard (which is the licence you will need in order to apply to an airline). Oxford and CTC are merely two of the largest.
Note that training costs tend to be directly proportional to the quantity and shininess of a school's marketing literature, and it is possible to get fully qualified from around £45k by using a combination of smaller schools and modular training.
Which is generally considered to be better (both generally and employment wise)?
Neither, and the question opens a huge can of worms. At the end of the day,
all schools have to train people to a standard where they can go flying with a CAA examiner and pass the skills tests for a CPL and instrument rating. We all end up qualified to the same standard.
Regarding employment chances, individual airlines (often for historical reasons) lean towards particular schools when they recruit, and a recommendation from your school can send your CV straight to the top of the interview pile. Note that this is emphatically not the same as guaranteeing a job, but it's a hell of a head start. The big integrated schools make much of their relationships with airlines (it's one way of justifying the cost differential) but smaller schools can be just as effective at securing interviews for people. In any case, most if not all UK airlines source their low-houred recruits from more than one school.
Far more important is whether airlines are actually recruiting. If they are not (and right now the job market for inexperienced pilots is practically dead) then it matters not where you trained, you will struggle to find work. Several of my cabin crew colleagues have CPLs issued by Oxford, FTE and modular schools – none of them can find a flying job.
At the end of these schemes, is it a case of "here is a job with airline x, it has the following pay and conditions - take it or leave it"?
If only. The job market for pilots is classic boom and bust, operating on roughly a 8-10 year cycle. Historically there is a sweet spot during the couple of years leading up to the peak, where jobs are relatively plentiful, and most people find employment quite quickly. The rest of the time, the experience of finding a first job ranges from very difficult to downright impossible. The importance of timing cannot be over-emphasised.
When times are good, it's not unknown for people to pick and choose between jobs, but it's rare. The vast majority of people would sell their granny for a chance of an airline interview, never mind a job.
What are the general working patterns of a pilot? Is it 4 days on, 3 days off etc?
Depends on the airline. Some have fixed roster patterns, like Ryanair of Easyjet. Some, like BA, have biddable rosters, so in theory, the longer you stay, the more you can write your own roster. Other airlines have variable rosters – within legal (CAA) and industrial (union) limits they can do what they like with you. I've got next month's roster in front of me; 2 off, 5 on, 2 off, 6 on (including 5 nights away from home) 3 off, 5 on, 2 off, 5 on. Only 2 standby days, and invariably I start on an early and finish on a late, so 2 days off is actually more like 36 hours. Then again, it is July. In winter months I might have a week of unused block standby – being paid to sit at home 'on call'. Swings and roundabouts.
One of the truisms of being an airline pilot is that within a year or two, the initial excitement subsides, and what you fly and where become secondary to the money and quality of life. But that's for the second job and beyond – when you're starting off, any work will do.
Once you are in a job (say after completion of the scheme), how secure is it?
How secure is any job? This industry is notoriously volatile, and few of us will get through our careers without at least the threat of redundancy. Added to which, we face regular medicals and simulator checks, failing any of which could mean a 'career interruption', as one of my colleagues delicately puts it.
Approximately how long does it take to pay off the expense of training?
It depends on how much you spend on training, how much debt you take on, how quickly you find a job and how well the job pays. I'm a career-changer, with a reasonably well paid office job in London which funded around half my training, the rest going on the mortgage. Three years after leaving that job, my income is just about up to the same level (although with much better long-term prospects and vastly better job satisfaction and quality of life). In short, if you're doing this to get rich, don't bother – train as an accountant instead.
does anyone know of people who have undertaken one of these schemes (CTC/Oxford) and subsequently found themselves in financial ruin?
Yes. I know people with £80k plus of debt who have maxed out all their credit cards and are struggling to fly a few hours a month to keep current. Good guys as well. They simply qualified at the wrong time, and it's not a pretty sight.
Good on you for asking the questions, but if you decide to launch into commercial flight training, always plan for the worst, and assume it may take years to find employment after you qualify. Never, ever listen to careers 'advice' from any flying school, and for God's sake limit your debt exposure. There are people qualifying now in their early twenties who will be well into their thirties before it's all paid off. They could have got a 'normal' job and used it to fund part time training while sitting out the recession and waiting for the job market to improve.
Forget school A versus B - hitting that sweet spot in the recruitment cycle is the best thing you could ever do to improve your employment prospects.