Excellent post Capt Spam Can. Covers a lot of the stuff.
Life when you join on the SO and 75% FO contracts is a bit pants. You'll earn enough to live but not for a great deal else. If you can afford to wait the 4 or so years to 100% SFO life becomes better, then hopefully a year or two after that you'll be a captain. Generally speaking captains t&c's are good, apart from the new bases. AMS/BCN/OPO/LIS. The Italian mini bases are also FRV.
EasyJet isn't perfect, but for a UK regional base I think you'd struggle to find much better.