Best advice for getting into quant/hedge fund/HFT in London

Hi all, I'm currently working as a graduate software developer in FTSE 100 company in southern England ( very close to London). I've graduated last summer, so I'm still "fresh meat", however most of my friends from uni are working in finance and I feel like I want to get a piece of that as well, before it's too late. I'm a very good programmer (low level stuff, C/C++, etc), and I have some conversational knowledge about finance, so naturally I've been thinking about a quant/HFT/developer position at a hedge fund. I'm not a big fan of working for one of the big banks since most of what they do is either application development, which I dislike since they also mostly use Windows or C#/Java, or algorithmic trading, which is quite dull as well. However, most hedge funds expect some buy-side experience, or a masters in mathematics, which I don't have (only BSc computer science, in a top tier UK university). Any advice into getting into the industry? I've contacted head hunters and I got some programming test by a london-based hedge fund, but apparently I didn't do it properly. I also tried applying on my own to another fund but I didn't hear back from them. I know my sample size is quite small (2), but do you think applying through head hunters/recruiters is better, or should I fly solo and just send out my CVs to all the funds I can? Also, in terms of HFT shops, does someone know if they usually recruit through head hunters as well? Thanks