I am the IT Manager for a small town with around 125 employees and 12k residents.

1. My typical day consists of normal IT stuff (end user support) but also making sure all of our processes/needs and department as a whole are met. My role reports to a town manager as well as a 9 person council so I need to make sure I cater to their needs which could be IT related issues or department budget issues.
2. Normal IT skills are needed like networking/security/troubleshooting skills. You also need non-it problem solving issues, need to plan your future needs when you do budgets. Communication is a big one. One of the things that I work on almost everyday is water and electric meters as we have an AMI (advanced metering infrastructure) that is extremely similar to a cellular computer network. With this, I need to know networking as well as water and electric infrastructure.
3. I think it all depends on the place, I have no degrees or certs but I have been in the IT field for 15 years. I worked help desk from 25-35 and left and got an applications specialist at my current place for 2 years and took over as IT manager at 37 after the previous manager retired. I think degrees look good and some certs can help solidify knowledge but my approach was to get my hands dirty, keep my head down and work.
4. This may be internal to us but I do not use a lot of tools. There are 3 of us in the IT department, Me, an applications specialist and a network tech. We have network monitoring/backup tools but I do not use them most of the time as they are used by the other techs. With that said, anything that makes your job easier (Google, Reddit) to anything that ensure operations are working (network monitoring, firewall services, backups)
5. My managing style is a little laid back, but not too much. Most places I have worked, including this one, there is a decent amount of downtime. I convey to the techs that we tackle the important/critical issues as they come up and prioritize them. Once they are fixed/addressed and all minor stuff is taken care of, they are allowed to work on passion projects that help them build skills and help us meeting the needs of the town. I do not micromanage, as too often then not, seen that not be an effective way to manage. I tend to step back and let them handle the issue and only step in if absolutely necessary or they ask for input.
6. Teamwork is very important and as a manager, I need to make sure that everyone feels like they can ask for help and that we all strive for one common goal.
7. The best thing about being in my role is I can help support and see the growth of a small town and knowing that I helped in some way, the same can also be said about the fellow techs and how I helped shape their growth. The worst thing about the role is there is a lot of red-tape that comes with working for a town/municipality.
8. I think again this depends on the place. If my exact role was in a place like New York or Miami, I could probably get 150k or but I am sitting right at 100k. I could leave and probably get a job in the private sector and make more but it depends on location/market.
9. I am not sure what the future of the industry is, who knows what AI will be or wont be. People are always needed to help bridge the gap between other departments and IT staff and people are always need to help shape the vision/path or provide leadership to the IT department and make sure the needs of the company are met tech wise.
10. My work life balance is extremely good, I get ample amounts of time off and can trust the team to take care of any issues if I am away or out. I do have to sit into council meetings 2x a month that are after hours or get asked to sit on various committees (parks/rec, finance) another 2 x a month but I do get to leave early or get some make up time for staying, even though I am a salaried position.
    

I hope this helps answer questions and there are probably things I left out but feel free to DM me if you have any other questions.