Economics undergraduate seeking advice on masters and internships

Dear Recruiters, Masters students (past or present) & fellow forum users. I need your advice!

I have just graduated with an 80%+ BSc in Economics at an above-average (but nothing special) University in the UK. I was accepted onto the MSc Investment & Wealth Management masters programme at Imperial College London, which at first I was delighted about but now I need opinions on a couple of things which are keeping me up at night.

1. I decided to defer the masters until next year. This was due to wanting to gain a year of industry experience (with the intention of landing internships at boutique IB's, PE, VC smaller firms - to find out what part of finance I'm truly passionate about & then tailoring the optional modules to fit) & also the masters costing £37,500 which quite frankly I cannot afford now unless I took out a loan.

2. Do recruiters favour the MSc Finance degree over similar masters programmes? Such as the Inv. & Wealth Management/ MSc Finance & Accounting (even though they have similar modules etc) or am I thinking too much into the name of the masters?

3. The deadline to pay the 10% deposit of £3,750 is 3rd September. I applied late last year (around February) so if I reapplied to MSc Finance at LSE, Imperial & Cambridge would I stand a chance of receiving a scholarship/partial scholarship with an 80%+ average degree & only 2 'relevant' internships so far?

I honestly didn't realise how difficult it was to secure even interviews at smaller finance companies unless you attended a Russell Group university at a minimum...

What else would you recommend I do??

I know that if I decide to go to Imperial next year that leaves me 12 months to build up the funds and gain as much experience as possible.

My plan is to:

- Learn VBA/Python to a high level

- Online virtual internships with JP, Citi, Bloomberg (I assume it shows that I'm not all talk and genuinely want to learn)

- Continuously applying to grad schemes/internships

Thanks for the help.