My son is 23 years and after having completed his ATPL/CPL/IR/MCC/JOC finally got a job in January this year as FO with a well known UK airline. There were 4000 online applicants, filtered down to 28 for further assessment and only 12 called for an interview, then trimmed down to 8 for the sim test but of only which four made it successfully to RHS as FO, my son being one of them.

From the stats that later emerged none of the 28 were over 35 years of age and none of the four successful candidates were older than 25 years of age.

A friend of mine who is a part time FI with about 1000 hrs TT, is 44 (similarly qualified to my son) applied when the airline again opened its recruitment portal at the beginning of the summer. He fell at the first fence. No reason was given but he was convinced it was because of his age

You have to chase your dream and that's OK when you're young and single with no family ties or commitments.

That's longer odds than the Aer Lingus programme last year which was one of the only fully airline-funded ab-initio programmes in Europe, they had 3,000-ish for 12 places.

I know the places offering type-ratings paid for such as TCX, Flybe and (I think) BA Cityflyer are going to be popular but I didn't realise there are still quite so many people applying. I'm guessing that's pretty much all of the unemployed fATPL holders in Europe who went for the airline mentioned.

Just goes to show, there's never a pilot shortage, even in the so-called "good times"!

Regarding age, I'd urge the OP (if they're based in the UK) to think about looking at the railway, quite a few train driver trainees who are over fifty when they start, let alone forty.