I have been in the IT business, in west coast US, for 40 years and retired in 2014. I have seen the IT technology changes and IT internal support transitioning to outsourcing up close and have seen and experienced waves of layoffs. Indeed IT people in the 50 years age group are most vulnerable to layoffs because of higher salaries and sometimes out of date technical skills. From my personal experience, one needs to stay up to date of the technologies that the IT market needs and willing to pay good money for which means that you need to periodically check the local and regional IT job market to find out what IT skills are in demand. Secondly you need to develop "leadership" skills so that as you gain more work experience, you need to assume leadership roles such as project managers etc to justify your higher salaries. Also you need to know yourself whether you are more suited to the 'technical' or the 'management' route. Finally you need to "love" the IT work to stay for the long term and not mind the periodical longer hours. Hope this helps.