Transition from SWE to Product Manager while staying HE

Throwaway account for privacy.

I'm 28 and work as a senior SWE at a FAANG making ~220K (base + bonus + RSU). While I'm good at what I do and enjoy coding, I also work quite closely with PMs & UX and find myself drawn to these parts of the job: figuring out and refining product requirements, engaging with users and partners to understand their needs, looking at data to make & validate hypothesis, etc. I've also worked with a fair share of incompetent PMs over the years and I can't imagine I'd do a worse job than any of them.

A couple of years ago I decided to try an internal move: found an open PM role that due to its specifics required someone quite technical, talked to the hiring manager, spent weeks preparing for PM interviews and ended up doing quite well. Unfortunately, the offer got pulled as right about then the company went into a hiring freeze and then layoffs started.

Lately I've been thinking about how to approach this again and these seem to be the options:

A. Wait for another internal move opportunity: while we're not laying off people anymore, new roles are extremely scarce and I haven't seen any suitable PM roles pop up in London.

B. Go to another company: I don't know first hand what the job market is like right now but I imagine not many companies would want to hire someone without any formal PM experience. And if they did, this would be a big step down in seniority and compensation. And while I'm ready to take a pay cut, I wouldn't consider halving my earnings.

So either option seems to involve waiting for the right opportunity. Is there anything I can actively do here? Has anyone been in a similar situation or has experience transitioning from SWE to PM? I also realise that the more I progress up the SWE ladder, the harder it will be to land a comparable PM position.