I am, of course, completely out of date on the current situation and am simply offering the ill-informed murmurings of an old bloke sat at a keyboard.
And, although not a pilot, i stayed [most of] the course for a variety of probably outdated reasons:
Reasonable rates of pay
Decent pension
Interesting jobs
A good life, when all's considered
It was only when I had just 5 years to go, no further career prospects [read 'promotion'], and had become rather tired of sitting at an HQ/MoD desk year after year* instead of being 'out there' with the Real Air Force that I was seduced by the Redundancy offer. The loss of salary was somewhat offset by the benefits of dropping out of the higher tax bracket, thus making savings and investments more profitable.
* Three consecutive MoD tours, followed by a Group HQ job.