Canada vs UK

Define better

International fees 20-30k per year? Compared to 9k/free as a home student in UK?

Needing a visa to be allowed to stay in the country afterwards? (difficult)

These are huge differences.

Those things aside, I'd say going to a top university in Canada is better for an engineering career as it is more respected. Things might vary between specific universities but for Mechanical, degree topics are covered in more depth/more intensely in North America and typically you need much higher average grades. Think ten classes with midterm exams, so ten 600-page textbooks worth of material per year compared with about 8 classes/exams per year/ maybe six textbooks here in the UK. Practical elements were about the same so doing lab reports each week. Average grade at UofT (where I studied abroad in 2011-12) was about 70%/2.7 GPA whereas for most unis in the UK that would put you in the top/max grade: 70+%= first. So a lot more work required in terms of volume and difficulty but do-able. North American graduate engineer salaries much higher than the UK for those who do manage to gain employment- probably due to engineer being a protected title there.

Job prospects varied a lot by province- in Ontario there was very high competition as more academic institutions compared to the size of the engineering industries, so about 3:1 grad to job ratio. Not unheard of to be unemployed for years after graduating, or to never gain employment in engineering. Not sure how things are holding up now. I believe things were better on the west coast due to more oil and gas companies being there and it being a less populated area in general.

Things not much better in the UK with a 2:1 grad:job ratio- average salaries pretty poor compared to similar non-university peers (e.g. electricians, plumbers, college level education typically earning more unless you progress to senior engineering/management level).

You gotta understand that the grading system in Canada and UK is completely different. A 70% in Canada is definitely not a 70% in the UK. The exams are very different and the reason why a 70% is a first in the UK is because the exams are generally seen as harder. More content is covered in a single exam (in general) which makes for this different grading system. If you were to convert a UK 70% (1st) to an American GPA system, that would be equivalent to a 3.8-4.0 grade.

As for the lower grade average in UofT is because that uni is infamous for insane grade deflation. One of the reasons why I ended up declining their offer was because I was scared that it'd be too difficult to get good grades. At the end of the day, getting high grades in a decent uni is better than getting low grades at a well known, reputable uni. If you can get good grades and go to a well known uni, then great, but otherwise yeah gotta think about this too