How can anybody justify entering a market that is already flooded with qualified pilots? I think ppracticalybroke has "got real" the expensive way and is demonstrating continuing sanity by not getting into debt. Noobs (or should it be knobs) suggesting that "following your dream" is a rational course of action are deluded. Not until the thousands of currently unemployed are absorbed by expansion and retirement will it make sense to train as a pilot. So my advice would be to save for a bigger revalidation in a few years time; and what's so bad about being tested by the CAA.
The important thing is to avoid debt and try for a life outside aviation for a while. I'm sure it will pick up and your current position will mean that you'll be one of the first few thousand into work. But I can't tell you when. My own company will be employing 80 or so pilots (the names of the next 200 or so are already known) so we still have a log jam of 120. My crystal ball predicts four years as being the great rush... But I won't be betting my own money!