There are differences between departments and external hires tend to command a higher entry wage than people coming in through the ranks, but leaving aside the operational roles HQ pays are/were within these brackets, in my experience:

Band 3 between 26,000 pa (grads) to approx. 54,000 (some ceilings might be higher)
Band 2 between 50,000 to north of 90,000
Band 1 beyond 80,000 but don’t know much more, never got to such lofty heights!

Airlines pay less than other areas, that’s a common fact unfortunately. And they have this super annoying habit of talking about money at the very end.

In terms of perks, again airlines have less than other sectors. Band 1s get a company car, Band 2s and above private insurance, plus there’s salary sacrifice stuff as normal. Less generous than in tech, comparable perhaps with aerospace. Staff travel is a bit “meh” honestly, especially if you have a family and want to go to touristy places on the school holidays. Hotline is a bit better.

As for working within BA, I think it’s really a mixed bag. The sense of mission and “community” I had was like nowhere else. The breadth of people you’ll work with is also great, and most of your colleagues will actually be pleasant people to work with. So on that side alone I’d go back to BA in a heartbeat, I’m frankly tired of dealing either with morons who saw Gordon Gekko and went “cool” or with nerds without any social skills. The other positive is that there’s a great deal of chances to move about in the company, or at least there was. And there are some prime brains.

Now, on the bad. Some departments (IFCE to name one) have what I find a very bad culture, acid and negative (IMHO). Some people, like certain new nominees in the Customer department, ought to be demoted to branch manager at a Jamie’s Italian or some other ghastly restaurant chain. There are periodic bouts of cost cutting frenzy, especially towards the end of the year, where you could be presenting the business case for the next iPhone-like idea but it won’t be approved… just because. Oh, and as it always happens in the airline industry, your job will never kind of be sure. If you haven’t been reorg’d or notified of a potential closure every 5 years you’re lucky.

All in all, sending a CV costs nothing. I’d go for it. If nothing else to go doing cool stuff around airplanes. We had a new joiner in my team, who’d come from a firm like Clifford Chance or something. We did a project about electric vehicles on the ramp and as he saw a 77W spooling up on the ramp, on the taxiway next to the stand we were standing on, he grinned from ear to ear and said “It sure as sh*t beats being a lawyer!” (No disrespect to those who like wearing wigs!)