I started out about 25 years ago and I suppose all I can do is to reiterate that nobody has ever asked if I have a degree. I don't really have a good handle on what the IT job market is like for people who are less experienced, TBH, so whether that information is actually useful or not I don't know. I still think it's worth applying anyway. I have worked in places where job ads have gone out for the same role I was already doing and after reading those ads I would have come to the conclusion that I was not qualified to apply. Basically my take is that people love to load those ads up so that they look impressive. When I interview what I want to know about a candidate is: are they smart and can they get stuff done? Anything else is secondary, really.
Location is probably a factor too. I am based near London and there are a lot of dev jobs around here. If you are regional then that may not be the case.
Fwiw, degrees were rarer in the software candidate pool 25 years ago, and become increasingly irrelevant as your career progresses. Once you hit about 5 years of experience, the amount of attention anyone pays to it nosedives.
These days, getting those first five years is harder, though. Because of a combination of a glut of juniors on the market plus a culture where it’s increasingly common for employees to stay only a year or so, which makes it less worthwhile for a company to invest in training juniors.
If you have ~1 year experience, and are currently working, I would recommend staying there another year, or even two. Hiring someone with no degree but 3 years of experience is a much less scary proposition for a company than hiring someone with no degree and 1 year. (Or so I think, but I am not a hiring manager.)
Location is probably a factor too. I am based near London and there are a lot of dev jobs around here. If you are regional then that may not be the case.