No one, harrier pilot or not, has a divine right to employment. And no, of course I wouldn't like to be in his position - but we all are, aren't we.
Outside perspective alert.
At risk of bigging myself up, I too do rather specialised work in an industry which is incredibly selective and difficult to get into, although I am a comparatively small operator in that field. People (not me) who have "deployed" with cameras on their shoulders, doing good and necessary work in unpleasant places and come back with bits of shrapnel in them, are now making wedding videos for a living. Not intending to get at anyone here, but hard-won and much loved careers are being shredded in all sectors. I got paid to do creative work today; today was a good day in those terms. May there be many more like it for everyone. Commiserations to the clobbered, nonetheless.
On a more constructive note, what happens to all these harriers, jaguars, sea harriers, and even Nimrods and the like that are taken out of sevice? Are the best ones put into some sort of survivable storage state so that they could, in extremis, be brought back into service to serve some sort of emergency? Obviously there's the issue of training crews, but the thought remains.
P