I'm guessing your primary concern is money/time to completion. Well, if you're not afraid of a little bit of risk and hard graft (long hours) then ditch your easy going, peanut paying permanent IT job for contracting. You'll take home up to 3 times more. However as a contractor you really need to know your stuff as you'll be expected to hit the ground running. It can at times be 3 times as much work but the money is still worth it. Believe me. Can I ask which area of IT are you in? support, dev or B.I?
Without such a move I'd still be sitting here with my PPL. In 2.5 years I saved enough to complete my ATPL exams, hour building, CPL, ME, IR, MCC and A320 TR with only a tiny bit of debt. (debt owed mainly because I left a contract to do the TR and then couldn’t find one again for a while!). In all this time, I've had a mortgage to pay, a house to run and 2 kids. There's proof if you need it, that you need to go contracting!
Right now, the market is completely dead. But keep plugging away and you never know. It took me the best part of 4 months to find something decent. In IT that is! I've already resigned myself to the fact that I may not find a paid flying job for a couple of years
. Can't afford to live as an F.I.
I think if you made the transition this year you will be nicely poised for opportunities in 3-4 years time. One thing remains true and that is that competition is fierce right now as ever. And it will get worse. However, you need to do your own risk analysis for that.
Regardless, there are many examples of folks who made the transition from permy to contractor and are now very happy bunnies indeed, 'desk-pilot' being one example.