I'm doing my MSc at potentially the same "top 3" uni in central London, after getting my undergraduate from a school much lower on the league tables. The bigges

I'm doing my MSc at potentially the same "top 3" uni in central London, after getting my undergraduate from a school much lower on the league tables. The biggest thing I've noticed, not considering any sort of academic rigor/quality differences, is the amount of on campus recruiting and outreach from big name employers in finance and engineering. It seems like there's someone on campus from DB, Barclays Capital, EY, Lehman, etc, everyday for the first month or so of the year. There's also things like opportunities to apply for McLaren racing sent from the department office -- things like that didn't exist at my old uni. It's not necessarily the case that these things would be unattainable, but you're much more aware of these opportunities at big name schools. The biggest boon comes if you're interested in entering the financial sector, or if you're really set on following the whole "graduate scheme" path. But like you suggest, it doesn't really matter outside of that.