I suspect that most applications without a degree on them are tossed

It's applications without any proof of experience that get tossed. A degree will help - but so will a few years in the industry :-)

I failed my first attempt, and quit after a week on my second. Three years later, Im leaving 3rd level tech support for a hardware giant to work for a major london finance house, supporting in-house software, where the big money is.

For both positions, I was interviewed by a technical person, and the impresion that I get, is that no one in the technical side of things gives a monkeys about degrees, just your abilities. If you can prove those, and the guy with 3 degrees can't, the job is yours.

Smitz

I was interviewed by a technical person, and the impresion that I get, is that no one in the technical side of things gives a monkeys about degrees, just your abilities.

I do agree with smitz that abilities are more important than degrees - but saying that employers don't care about degrees is a bit strong in my experience.

It does depend on the position of course, but sometimes having a degree is a very good indicator that you have the skills. It's also an indicator that the person involved can do something solid for three years (not saying that those without degrees can't - but having the degree acts as some supporting evidence).

If I'm looking at the resume of somebody with no commercial experience I'm going to give more weight to it if they have a decent CS degree. Since you only have finite resources when hiring and can see only so many people, not having a degree may mean you don't get on that vital interview list.

Also, in a tight job market, some employers use them as simple filters. No degree and your resume doesn't get past HR. Three years ago the job market was a lot better than it is now.