It's a capacity issue - you wouldn't 'find somebody who ticked all the boxes, but didn't have a degree' in the first place, because their resume would simply no

It's a capacity issue - you wouldn't 'find somebody who ticked all the boxes, but didn't have a degree' in the first place, because their resume would simply not make it into the interview pile. Now that may be shortsighted or suboptimal on the part of the hiring company, but it's a quick and dirty heuristic to reduce the pile of resumes to something more manageable.