If you want to be near a/c but may have trouble getting the hands on experience then you may want to consider the C licence route.
With an appropriate degree you have complete exemption and only need experience in a hangar environment (and this not even on the tools) companies to look at would be fixed base MRO's like Shannon aerospace, SRT, etc. There are also still some airlines with in-house maintenance like BA, Virgin, Monarch, etc. Your C licence would allow you to sign off CRS's following SMI. It is basically a paperwork exercise checking all the documentation is correct and necessary inspections carried out, etc. But it does get you closer to the sharp end of maintenance engineering!