[OrsenPike]

To answer you questions...

1. Hardly ever. Then again I am not doing anything amazingly special or complicated. Just standard business apps.

2. That experience is worth double what theoretical education is. So make sure you DO STUFF and stick it up on github. Write a blog about what interests though. Writing a blog is great at improving your language skills. Also take some presentation skills courses while you can as it is all about selling yourself and your MSc won't sell you sorry to say.

3. Zero. Nobody cares what uni you went to unless you are going into fields like medicine. Your experience and previous work (again stick stuff on github!!) will help more than saying you got a first from Cambridge. The exception might be places like Google but I don't know anything about working for Google :)

[blibble]

while an elite degree might not get you the job, it does help in getting your foot in the door, and it's likely to get you a higher base salary.

the data I have shows me that my (non first) Cambridge degree allows me to command a 10-20% higher salary than my non-Oxbridge colleagues.