Profile Evaluation and BSchool Advice - Engineer with 0 work experience

Hello guys!

I will try to keep it as short as possible. I have a MSc in Civil/Structural Engineering from the best engineering school in Greece with high 2:1/1st class honors, graduated top 10% in my class. I am currently in a PhD position and while it's going really well, already having published in 3 conferences and currently submitting to a journal, I feel it's dry, boring, too technical and is hard-capping my ambition in life.

Due to financial problems early on, I paused my studies and took a couple of years off in order to work as a waiter/ delivered food. Now I am 26-27 years old with research experience, great reference letters, great grades and no work experience on jobs that require a degree. GMAT/GRE I don't have yet but from my network and experience, I know that I can get 700+ and probably more. If it's REALLY important for scholarships and I dedicate a couple of months into it, I think I could go up to 730+.

I am sure I want to go to business school, not because of the money (although it's obviously a reason) but because I have a real passion about the world of business. When I think about that I want to do, it's not science or engineering, it's business. I have come to understand that I don't like extremely technical stuff like engineering and want to work in a "front office" position where I can use my peoples skills, that's why I am not looking for a quant/S&T career as would be the "natural" progression coming from engineering.

Keeping in mind that I will go for the cheapest option that can 'safely' get me in IB/Consulting in London, probably starting with an internship, what are my choices here?

I think the HEC MiM would be great, as work experience doesn't matter much for admission and the gap year would allow me to build some great work experience for after graduation. The problem is that in its entirety it's 3 years and that would mean I would be searching for an analyst position 29-30 years old, I feel that it would be weird to get the job when the other candidates will be 22 yo.

Another option is WBS MFin. I am pretty sure I can get the 50% scholarship there (many comparable people to me in my network have), but it's in Coventry and due to me not having work experience I feel I really have to nail networking if I want to stand a chance. Also, it's not Oxford where the brand name will do wonders, WBS is great but it's still not top tier.

I think that Cass MFin would be a great choice. Fees are lower, I am more likely to get a scholarship since it's not a "great" school and it's in London, so I could make things work with networking. The problem here is, Cass isn't a "great" school and I given my zero work experience, I need a great brand name in order to even begin to balance it out.

Bocconi MFin would be an option but I just don't see the appeal over HEC MiM, besides the merit scholarships. In this case I want to ask, is the GMAT favored over the GRE when scholarships are concerned? I am not looking to just get in these programs, I want to get in and pay the least I can.

About the target schools like LSE, Imperial, LBS, etc, I am not sure I would get good scholarships and that's why I am not mentioning them.

What do you guys think? Is any of what I am saying wrong? Are there other options for me? Do you happen to know which schools give better scholarships? All information would be greatly appreciated, if there's anything you would like to know about me feel free to ask, wanted to keep it as short as possible.