Regarding Canada, I don't believe that whether a degree is Washington accord or not matters too much for PEng, see the requirements for e.g. Ontario here: https://www.peo.on.ca/licence-applications/become-professional-engineer/general-academic-requirements basically they assess each non-Canadian degree separately on each application. But other states in Canada may be different. In the end, I think if you can find a company in Canada that will employ you (which you realistically need first anyway in order to get PEng) then it will get sorted. 


Regarding your first question, in a previous UK company I worked for we used to regularly sponsor staff through two year top up programmes to take their HNDs to BEng. Those who decided to leave the company seemed to find other jobs with no problem at all! In my experience most UK employers simply don't know enough about the different degree programmes for it to matter - there are hundreds (thousands?) of different engineering degree programmes in the UK alone, and the poor engineering manager is quite busy enough doing their day job without spending time worrying about which exact degree a candidate has. HR departments do worry about degree grades (because that's an easy thing to measure to reject CVs if you have too many applicants), so my advice is to find the degree which you're likely to enjoy the most and therefore get the best grade in. 


However, one word of caution, an HND is not the same as the first 1 to 2 years of a degree. An HND is a vocational course ("this is how to do the stuff we already know about"), a degree is an academic course ("this is how to think about solving a problem we haven't even thought of yet"). Topping up an HND is hard work, as mentioned I've seen many do it, in particular typically a lot of additional maths study may be required. It can still be a really good thing to do, just be prepared for that change in direction. 


Cheers,


Andy

Regarding Canada, I don't believe that whether a degree is Washington accord or not matters too much for PEng, see the requirements for e.g. Ontario here: https://www.peo.on.ca/licence-applications/become-professional-engineer/general-academic-requirements basically they assess each non-Canadian degree separately on each application. But other states in Canada may be different. In the end, I think if you can find a company in Canada that will employ you (which you realistically need first anyway in order to get PEng) then it will get sorted. 


Regarding your first question, in a previous UK company I worked for we used to regularly sponsor staff through two year top up programmes to take their HNDs to BEng. Those who decided to leave the company seemed to find other jobs with no problem at all! In my experience most UK employers simply don't know enough about the different degree programmes for it to matter - there are hundreds (thousands?) of different engineering degree programmes in the UK alone, and the poor engineering manager is quite busy enough doing their day job without spending time worrying about which exact degree a candidate has. HR departments do worry about degree grades (because that's an easy thing to measure to reject CVs if you have too many applicants), so my advice is to find the degree which you're likely to enjoy the most and therefore get the best grade in. 


However, one word of caution, an HND is not the same as the first 1 to 2 years of a degree. An HND is a vocational course ("this is how to do the stuff we already know about"), a degree is an academic course ("this is how to think about solving a problem we haven't even thought of yet"). Topping up an HND is hard work, as mentioned I've seen many do it, in particular typically a lot of additional maths study may be required. It can still be a really good thing to do, just be prepared for that change in direction. 


Cheers,


Andy