Ask HN: Thriving in Information Systems Development/Consultancy

I work as developer for 13 years in IT/Business Consultancy and I feel stagnated in the field. I never liked this area, I was passionate in CG/AI when I took the degree but I ended working for consultancy like companies.

I have been doing tables and forms all my career, never been promoted to manager role. Do you see any future in this area? Are the IT Consultant developers the new administrative employees? The new secretaries with the democratization of software development?

How do you thrive and keep motivated if you are working in this area? And why business area development still need engineers when the patterns are all the same like form/tables/validation/database management cycle. Is this area doomed to low wage due to skills necessary to perform the job?