I would suggest several reasons why IT people are commonly found in the UK flying scene.
They make/made loadsamoney, and you definitely need that to fly in the UK.
For most people working in IT in the UK, although they made loadsamoney, their medium/long term career paths were not good. Airline pilots have a very very secure career in comparison, and well paid too (though the way they bitch and moan you would not believe them
). Commercial flying would be a definite draw for long term career stability, to be exploited by the more sensible IT folk who could see the IT downturn ahead of time. IMO, it will be down for some time to come.
(I was hired by a PLC to manage a tech startup in the UK a couple of years ago. I could not believe how much I had to pay a web-developer, with no real education or skills. I ended up paying him more than I paid myself or other key employees (though we had equity
). I am sure the web-developer is now flipping hamburgers, which is a shame because he was a nice guy. He always had to have the latest £300 phone or PDA, I am sure lots of IT guys from the late 90's are regretting spending all their windfall money on fancy cars and flying lessons.)
Paradoxically, flying a plane will be one of the last jobs to be taken over by computers. Paradoxically because it would be one of the easiest jobs to replace! Airbus IT programmers will be replaced by their own software before you could persuade passengers to get on an Airbus flown by their software itself. A shame, as it will cost lives.
All IMO of course
