I have hella respect for any tradie and the hard work they do. I actively encourage my kids to think of trade school as a viable career path. I work in IT and I hate it most days. I wish some days I had gone into HVAC, electrical, or plumbing, but at this point I'm kind of stuck since I have three kids I need to support.
Im curious why you dont think IT is like a trade? I write code all day and petty much feel like a glorified construction worker for computer programs. IT has been blue collar for a while now. Heck my local trade school for teenagers 15 years ago had various IT role classes.
They're teaching IT stuff in trade schools now? That's great if so. When I went to school only colleges/universities had IT coursework. God I'm old.......amazing how much changes in 16 years.
I went to a trade school for high school about 25 years ago. They had an IT path that taught everything from the Office suite to code, and a separate course for hardware.
TBF "IT" covers everything from Helpdesk to devs so I really think it just comes down to what you're doing within the field. I wouldn't mind coding all day, but doing helpdesk for any prolonged period of time is usually not fun