[issa]

I went from a career as a full-time musician to a tech worker. When I say "career", I mean that I literally got by with the minimum of everything. It was fine in my 20s, but quickly became unsustainable in my 30s. This is why so many comments in this thread are focused on money. The typical path for artists is to start young and broke, or young with wealthy parents. Then it just becomes a story of financial attrition. A few people become financially successful and continue as musicians, but most eventually find a "real" job as they get older.

This is the depressing truth: as you get older you want and need more financial stability. So if you do want to make the switch, you should do it now. Be willing to be broke for the next 5-10 years as you chase your dream, then, worst case scenario, switch back to tech.

[frereubu]

This is close to what happened to me. I went back to study sculpture in my 30s, and although I loved it, and still have creative projects, I realised pretty quickly that I wasn't ready to go back to a hand-to-mouth lifestyle, living in shabby digs in the cheap part of town. Now I have a family and there's absolutely no way I'd want to go back to that kind of financial insecurity. For every Damien Hirst and Grayson Perry there are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of struggling artists. I met quite a few fine artists who were full-time professionals making genuinely wonderful work, represented by well-regarded galleries, who despite being able to occasionally sell pieces in the tens of thousands of pounds were still scraping a living teaching at art college. (Not helped by the fact that galleries generally take at least 50% of any sale price).