Very good question. In my experience, for the majority of employers it won't matter which you do, the important thing is to choose the course which you are going to do best at: many HR departments will draw a line under degree grades (irrespective of the degree) and reject all grades under that, so it can be better to get a 1st BSc than a 2.2 BEng. So first thing can be to look at the course content and decide which one you are going to enjoy the most, because that's probably the one you will do best at.

This includes the length of time the course will take, sometimes if you have already been working you will do better at a shorter course because it just takes up less of your life.

BEng Tech courses are (as I understand it, I may be wrong) specifically tailored for people coming from HND, so you may find you do better on this course.

Regarding Professional Registration, don't worry about it, you can get CEng with an HND, do NOT choose a course because anyone tells you it "will lead to professional registration". As a Professional Registration Adviser I get very frustrated when I hear that! What is important is that you choose a course which will lead you personally to a good career that suits you, your professional registration is fundamentally based on the level of responsibility your employer has given you, not your qualification - the important part of your qualification is getting you to that point of responsibility. (Applying with an HND for example you may need to spend an extra couple of days filling in additional information forms for CEng, doing a four year degree at £xxx thousand seems a bit overkill if it's only to avoid those extra couple of days!)

Do look on jobs sites for what employers in your preferred field are looking for. To be honest that's the best guide as to what degree to go for. And look carefully, are they saying "BEng essential" or "BEng (or equivalent) preferred". If it's the second that that's a sign that in your industry experience etc is more important to them than specific degrees. Every engineering sector, and different companies in the same sector, have very different things they are looking for.

You haven't said whether you will be employed while you are studying, if not then DO try to find courses that include work experience. Really, really important to employers.

That may not have exactly answered your question, let's face it the reason so many qualifications are on offer is because any of them could lead to a career - just a different career (or different path). So it can never be that one is "better" than the other, it is just whichever suits you.

Hope that helps a bit,

Andy

P.S. Just for fun but also to show this this becomes much less important with time: I have a BEng. When I did my degree a BEng was seen as inferior to a BSc (at least at the University I went to) - BSc was seen as being for people who could do maths, BEng was seen as being for people who solved problems by hitting them with a bigger hammer. A few year later the IEE etc decided that BEng was the superior degree (much to my amusement of course). The point is, whoever recruits you will probably have done their degree under a completely different system and probably won't have any idea what the difference between these degrees is either. What they'll want to know is what did you actually learn - and that's another reason that degrees with significant work placements are so useful, you find out which parts of your degree, whatever it is, are really important to the industry you want to go into.

Hi Andy,

Thanks so much for the answer, really insightful.

Luckily I am already in industry having worked my way up from being an electrician so the employability aspect shouldn't be too much of an issue.

I will definitely look to begin the professional registration process prior to achieving an Honours Degree! 

Hi Andy,

Thanks so much for the answer, really insightful.

Luckily I am already in industry having worked my way up from being an electrician so the employability aspect shouldn't be too much of an issue.

I will definitely look to begin the professional registration process prior to achieving an Honours Degree! 

No problem! You might want to look at the IET Mentorship scheme, which might help - it's much underused and is there to give one-to-one support on questions like this.

All the best!

Andy