A spontaneous control freak? Interesting combination!
There are no specific higher education requirements for a commercial job; GCSEs in the usual subjects is often an entry requirement for integrated training courses or for the few and far between part-sponsored courses. A travel and tourism qualification and working as cabin crew would quite likely look good on your CV though!
There is a general wisdom that anyone that wants to be a pilot should do a degree, because when you have your CPL completed and find you can't get a job you can use your degree as a fall back to get a job. It's not essential, but again might spruce up your CV a bit.
Mad Jock, I think if someone just wants to be an instructor it is - all soon will be - possible to do it and get paid on just a PPL+FI?