Year Abroad vs Final Year - Better for Recruiting or Will I Regret It?

I’m at a UK target uni, and I need to decide this week whether to take a year abroad (part of my degree) or go straight into the final year next year.

This recruiting cycle has been pretty exhausting. I’ve been recruiting heavily for IB + buy-side roles (PE / REPE / MF/MM/LMM), and while I’ve been able to get interviews, I haven’t converted an offer yet.

The frustrating part is that I’ve not much luck with IB in terms of securing interviews, whereas most of my interviews have been buy-side (probably due to my previous internships).

I’m still trying to break into IB/PE, but right now I feel stuck and unsure what the smartest move is.

I also recently got feedback from a megafund after a superday, and I’m trying to make sure I don’t make the same mistakes again, going into the next processes.

I do have a Big 4 tax summer offer as a backup (spring conversion). If I take a year abroad, I can still do the summer, but I’d likely lose the conversion/return offer pathway, so the safety net becomes much weaker.

The thing making this harder is that I think there’s still time for Jan–Apr recruiting to work out and potentially land a decent summer this year, but the year abroad decision has a deadline right now, before I even know how the rest of recruiting will play out.

So I’m basically weighing:

Option A: Stay + go into final year

• keep my current network/social life
• keep the strongest chance of converting my backup
• keep recruiting this year properly + recruit alongside final year

Option B: Take a year abroad

• personal growth/reset/extra time
• re-recruit for IB/PE again
• but risk weakening my backup option + being away from friends

Socially, losing a year with my friends is a big downside, but I also don’t want to make a decision purely out of comfort/fear.

Would really appreciate honest views from anyone who:

• did a year abroad and it helped recruiting (or didn’t)
• struck out early but converted later in Jan–Apr
• stayed and recruited successfully in the final year
• had a backup offer but didn’t want that path long-term

Thanks in advance.

Brief profile: UK target uni, 2 internships in first year (RE PE shop + small PE fund), ~10 processes Oct–Dec (mostly MF/MM/LMM + REPE), interviews but no offer yet, minimal IB interviews so far.