tl;dr yes (to the title, not the other one)
My background - engineering masters degree. Based in UK.
I would like to say that the questions you've asked are completely different.
Would I employee someone without a degree? - Yes, given certain assumptions.
Do I prefer someone with a degree over someone who doesn't? - This is a subjective question that attracts subjective answers.
For me, whether a candidate has a degree or not can be irrelevant.
From experience I know employers look more for commercial experience instead of educational. And therefore commercial experience has more weighting - this is a general rule. Especially considering, in the UK at least, the gap between university education and a year in the industry can be quite drastic at times.
Asking about self-taught programmers is always a difficult one as an employer has no real method (apart from a basic coding test, maybe) of seeing what level that candidate is at. It's difficult to see their true skill level. It's also difficult for the candidate who may not have a mentor/a teacher when starting out in this field.
TheSheriff
Co-Founder, Founder, Entrepreneur & Problem Solver