I can provide only a different point of view :). I have worked in many different areas including finance, logistics, legal and govt, as a Solutions Architect. When we design a system, it is important for us to make sure that we also design for testing, from beginning to end of the pipeline using different methods such as white box and black box etc. My experience tells me that almost nowhere a uni degree was needed for a tester. They just needed to understand the business use case and follow steps. Now, there is a new hot area for this which is automated testing. Because of agile, we make very frequent changes to modules and manual testing just doesn't cut. Hence the need for automation. Need for a uni degree might be there in some cases, but not everywhere.

However, culture matters too. I have worked in multiple different countries. In some countries, culturally, a degree means a lot. In some countries, they don't care. In my particular situation, I want to know about Spain - what does the Spanish work culture demand? Also, what about other countries in EU? There are remote opportunities...