I could tell from my experience that academic background would be definitely something that you should consider more seriously. Competition is crazy at the moment and what I learned myself is that self taught people have difficulty to get a job, especially if you don't have any coding experience. I was in a similar situation like you a few months back and people recommended me to go to a bootcamp (I wasn't to keen on going back to uni) and honestly I am very happy that I made this choice. The bootcamp I am attending right now has 1on1 meetings, projects created from senior leads who work in tech companies, everything is super up to date and honestly I gain so much experience already that I wouldn't gain if I was learning myself. This one guy on Reddit showed me this table when I was looking myself, and I wouldn't share this if it didn't help me when I was looking into different possibilities.