Currently, digital reading has become a fashionable form of reading, deeply influencing the reading behavior of college students and leading to a scarcity of deep reading. From the perspective of metacognitive engagement theory, deep reading is closely related to metacognitive engagement. Developing a scale of metacognitive engagement in English reading based on digital footprints can help examine the status of deep reading in readers. By constructing the scale and conducting empirical research on the digital footprints of students from multiple universities in English reading, the results show that the metacognitive engagement of Chinese college students in English reading is insufficient. Individual differences are mainly reflected in the aspects of timing and strategy in the behavior engagement, as well as the aspects of concentration and persistence in the thinking engagement. There is an overall lack of emotional engagement, and deep reading has not been universally achieved. The design of the scale of metacognitive engagement provides references for the optimization of digital reading platforms and the exploration of the pathways to promote English deep reading.