Its combination of location, experience, salary expectations and sectoral business conditions. In a good market everybody needs warm bodies, the standards drop

Its combination of location, experience, salary expectations and sectoral business conditions. In a good market everybody needs warm bodies, the standards drop, the pay levels rise. In a poor market people focus on the absolutely required positions (e.g. replacing critical vacant roles) and pay levels drop. Location (country / region) is quite important too, there are places with chronic and dire shortages in IT expertise (but salaries might not be great). These are the fundamentals. Then you have the overlay of market making / matching which is clearly totally broken and only gets worse. What is important is to find the discipline and energy to keep developing while job searching. Maybe work on a open source project or learn something new, expanding your expertise by going deeper or broader.