I can't say myself since I'm sort of in the same boat as you are. I love research and abstract thinking, but I value time spent on family and relaxation more, so I decided against going into academia. IT / programming support for a research position is just an idea that I'd seen suggested I think in a few places. For myself I'm hoping to go for data science since that's very closely related to many types of research and if a research job doesn't work out then at least it pays quite well.