As a self-taught dev contracting in London (UK), I usually have no problem getting work. Perhaps the finance industry is more insular than others - though I've never worked in it.
How do you find it?
Side note: does contracting exist there?
If you are talking finance with a sell side bank, its probably a deal breaker as they have large HR driven hiring processes.
If you are talking a buy side firm then its probably not an issue, though if you are expected to have any sort of math competency then a lack of a degree will probably put you under more scrutiny than you might otherwise be under.
Contracting is very real and very pervasive.
If you are attempting to contract in Canada from the UK then I'd imagine that might be the issue as there isn't a real shortage of devs in Toronto right now so I can see why companies might want to hire locally first.
I dedicate about 1 lunch a week to mentoring. If you are ever in Toronto and want to chat, reach out to me, email in my profile.
High paid people in Canada are working as a consultants mostly for US-based entities or at an enterprises with a strong international exposure or as an entrepreneurs with US- or international exposure themselves.
Being pure Canadian employee in Canada sucks and always sucked.
Degree matters in large companies due to regulations and they tends to hire some extremely dinosauric skill verification firm to cause you major hassles to verify your background.
Smaller companies just need to make sure your skill match your resume and hence they'll bore you to death on their interviews with coding questions.
If you are hired, expect to become the one asking coding questions the very next day :)
I also have a friend who went from doing low-level microcontroller work to working in finance. Financial industry might be tougher to break in to without a degree but if you know somebody there (as is typically the case with these things) and you score an interview you will be on an equal playing field with the devs with college degrees (again IMHO).
EDIT: A good thing you parenthesized London with (UK) as we have a London in Southern Ontario not too far from TO.
Yes, contracting exists in Toronto. Many firms, large and small, often post job openings for contract positions of anywhere from 3 months (uncommon, but happens) to 6 months (very common) or a year (very common).