As you will be aware the A licence comprises more than a college course. You need to pass the CAA exams at the required grades and have the required practical experience. In my company we get many requests for placements from people in your position and we have to turn them down because if we took them all we'd have more apprentices than engineers.
If you are set on the spanners as a career talk to some agencies and see if any of them can get you work as a connie. A lot of people do that to get the experience in, and if you provide your own logbook and speak nicely to the crew chief you should be able to get the right task coverage signed off.
On a wider note what's the problem with sitting in an office? You say you're just doing air leg but that could describe a wide variety of tasks from QA to Part M. Either way perfectly viable career paths for somebody with a relevant engineering background who doesn't have to spend the day lying in a pool of kerosene to get job satisfaction
