Depends on what you find more important aspect in a job. Some folks want to be paid the most, no matter the sacrifice. Others look for stability and job security as their priority.
If you want to be paid well out of the gate, software engineers are typically paid a lot more out of school than IT folks. It takes many years of IT experience and/or possibly going the supervisory route before the pay dramatically increases. Some IT folks are paid very well, don’t get me wrong, but as a whole, Software Engineers make a lot more money.
The flipside is that IT folks have more opportunities for employment and have a much broader market footprint than software engineers do. Software Engineers typically stay put in their positions, and learn one trade or programming language very well, but are then pigeon holed in that market or sector. IT folks are more pliable and can move around easier with growth or reductions in industry as needed, and experience can be applied to virtually any field of IT in some way. That’s not always the case in software. Learning a new software trade could be like starting a career all over again.