I’ve started working in IT over 20 years ago. In my humble opinion, one of the keys is being specialized on something that not everyone else can do. Become proficient in a certain area - devops, quality assurance, security, whatever.

On top of that, try and acquire a niche skill that makes you the type of employee that’s hard to find and replace. For example, banks are really desperate to find Cobol experts because most of them are pensioners now.

I know it’s tough, and I wish you had it as easy as I did back in the days, but it’s all I can tell you, unfortunately.