I am still the highest paid person I personally know - by a rather high margin, because of my experience as a software engineer.

Since I dropped out of university almost 20 years ago, I have been consulting and contracting, focusing almost exclusively on Python, PostgreSQL and, more recently, AWS. This simple combination (I usually refuse to learn anything new - I don't think there have been many noteworthy new technologies in the past couple of decades) has made me millions over the years and I have never been left without work for any significant period of time.

Since the pandemic began, I have actually found myself contracting multiple roles concurrently, from my home, each paying significantly above the average developer rate. I've found I can do up to 3 - 4 at a time and still deliver results for each (declining to attend regular meetings helps).