I wouldn't place too much weighting on having a year in industry, the reality is there aren't actually that many placements especially if you're applying after second year. I go to a similar tier engineering school and can name three people across two years who got placements, two of which were summer placements and all of them were high achievers and President/VP of related societies.
I'd go for Swansea though, it'll save you a year and if you want to go somewhere like Southampton later you can always do a masters there.