UK pilot who borrowed £173,000 to qualify shares how much he earns

It turns out that becoming a fully qualified pilot in the UK isn't as plush as it sounds.

That's the perception emanating from Nathan Raab, anyway, who splurged a total of £173,000 on his high-flying education.

Providing something of a cautionary tale for people who might be considering a career in the skies, he made an in-depth YouTube explainer earlier this month.

Addressing his 4,000 subscribers, Nathan began: "I'm doing this video because it's the video that I would want. This video is the video I would have wanted as a boy. This is the video that I wish I could have watched before starting out on my career as a pilot."

For context, this is a guy who's now 10 years into the job (almost three as a captain) and currently operates the Airbus A320 out of London... but sounds like he slightly regrets his life choices.

"Let's talk about where I started: 2016, got a job [with] EasyJet based up in Edinburgh. I was living in London at the time [and] they weren't offering full-time contracts, so we were basically like part of a recruitment agency. We were getting paid £30 per flying hour. So that means if you turn up to work and go to Amsterdam from Edinburgh, it's about an hour flight. You're going to come home with about 60 quid.

"Obviously you have the hour before the flight where you brief, you have the turnaround which is about 40 minutes and then you have the debrief of the flight as well. But you only get paid per the flying hour. And the maximum you can really fly in a month is like 90 to 100 hours. So the maximum money you can really earn is £3,000," revealed Nathan.

Sizeable monthly loan repayments - this was going to take a whole decade to square off - and accommodation bills meant that his £3k at the time was being bled dry, though.

"In 2018, after 2 years of contract work, I went onto a Second Officer contract, which means you're on a basic salary. But you don't get any other pay benefit such as sector pay, which is normally an industry thing. And that was £41,320 which means you have a monthly take-home pay of £2,755 roughly," he continued.

"After a year of being a Second Officer, you then got a natural career progression onto a part-time First Officer. Right after that, going into your fourth to fifth year, you go into a 100 percent contract, which means you're on £48,824. Then you're at £59,936 as a Senior First Officer; your take-home pay is about 3,700 quid.

"After four years, you can basically live, right? You can get food, you can go out, you can have a bit of fun, maybe even go on holiday. So it takes about four to five years to get to a position where you can do more than the basic necessities and not be in your credit card every month."

Skip to 2019 and the coronavirus pandemic put a halt to his next job at a separate airline company.

Three years later, he was finally back in the cockpit, but the salaries 'took a massive, massive hit' across the industry thanks to Covid-19. They allegedly reduced by a whole 30 percent.

"They actually went down to below the First Officer salary I was on at EasyJet years before, and obviously we know the cost of living went up," Nathan pointed out.

Unable to disclose his own confidential contract, he then turned his attention to Google's salary listings over the last 12 months.

"As a First Officer in May 2025 and mid-2026 [it's] £65,000. With sector pay you're probably looking at about 77 to 78,000 a year. A take-home roughly of £4,500 after tax. So that's the position you're going to be in as quite an experienced four to five-year First Officer pilot going into an airline pretty much.

"Now let's talk about a captain," he added. "When you get an upgrade, you become a Commander of the aircraft and you go for a command course, and obviously you have more responsibility so your pay does go up.

"I think you're looking at £114,000 pay [and] after sector pay you're looking at 125 grand."

However, there's £200k up for grabs for captains at 'legacy' airlines with more than 30 years under their belt.

"The crazy thing that I didn't realise when I was younger is how much tax there is," he laughed. "I know it might sound obvious, but I always thought 100 grand is a lot a lot of dough. I was thinking, 'Wow, man. Over 100 grand, where do I get a Ferrari from?'"