General advice dealing with a sector specific downturn

Hello all, general question / asking for advise on how someone deals with a downturn in their specific sector?

I'm a listed real estate specialist. I have a decade of experience with REITs and I'm struggling to find a new role.

I've been at my current shop for a while now but the pay is well below the street and a lot of turnover has happened in the firm.

I'm trying to find a new job / role but the market is lacklustre.

More pressure is being piled on me because of resource and the performance structure is a joke longevity is not a factor anymore.

My options are starting out in PE but my direct experience isn't worth anything to most HR departments so am being forced to go a junior route –

I’ve attempted to do this and then have been told my previous salary is too high which implies I would leave for something else when the opportunity arose.

I'm stuck in this awkward place where I'm waiting for listed RE to pick up again i.e., QE and a deep recession where rates collapse and expecting inflation does so also without the possibility of stagflation.

I've spoken to a few recruiters and they've stressed how notoriously difficult it is to flip sector (personally I don't want to).

My question is what do you do when you're a specialist in your field but the market doesn't care and market forces aren't working for you in the interim?

It doesn’t help that I’m working 100+ hour weeks and working out my salary post tax and hours worked I see that some 30k idiot on a 9-5 gets paid more than me (detail I know).

I work my ass off - I'm not appreciated - everyone else fucked off and now I'm left holding the bag.

I appreciate this is a nuanced topic and probably applies to the more experienced people in the board.
This probably chimes well with anyone in FIG and Energy given the specialty of those fields and RE flows into one of the above - WSO wouldn't offer a specific course if it wasn't so niche.

Commercial real estate is going through the worst recession since the '08 financial crisis - I look for gigs and it's just Tech - RE is the plague unless PE.

Hopefully that adds a bit of flavour to the experienced generalists / non specialists.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks all.