HUMAN CAPITAL PULSE: TECHNOLOGY · ISSUE 7 · JULY 2026
A monthly Human Capital benchmark for HR and People leaders in Technology: the sector's talking points and how culture, workforce and talent compare across your peers, built on Deltabase data covering 5,500+ companies and 11M employee reviews.
Our half-year review starts with a paradox. Announced tech job cuts in the first half of 2026 were up 83% on 2025, yet measured turnover fell at most of the sector's biggest employers as hiring rebounded. Microsoft opened its new financial year with 4,800 cuts, while UK AI vacancies jumped by more than 40%. This issue puts H1 turnover, hiring and culture side by side.
Leroy Hall, Deltabase
What happened: Challenger, Gray & Christmas counted 139,156 tech job cuts in January–June 2026, up 83% from 76,214 a year earlier, even as total US cuts fell 40% to 443,604. AI was cited in 101,743 announcements, about 23% of the total, HR Dive reported.
The Deltabase lens: Turnover: Announcements and attrition tell different stories. Average monthly turnover in H1 2026 was below H1 2025 at seven of our ten Technology companies, flat at Microsoft and Arm, and up only at Oracle (1.21%, from 0.65%). New hires rose at six of the ten.
So what: Headline cuts are not the same as churn. Report both, and show the board where you are hiring as well as where you are cutting.
What happened: Microsoft is cutting about 4,800 roles, 2.1% of its global workforce, mainly in sales and Xbox, according to an email from HR chief Amy Coleman. Xbox will cut 3,200 jobs through fiscal 2027, and Microsoft said the cuts aim to lower costs and shift resources towards AI infrastructure, RTTNews reported.
The Deltabase lens: Workforce: Sales makes up 6.7% of Microsoft's workforce, against 46.9% in Tech. Culture: Career Progression NSS fell from −35.5% to −47.8% in 2025 (4,976 reviews), the steepest decline among the ten, while overall NSS eased from +12.4% to +10.9%.
So what: Repeated summer rounds make career confidence the thing to protect; tell remaining sales teams how their roles will grow with AI.
What happened: APSCo and CV-Library data showed 126,861 UK tech vacancies in Q2 2026, up 4.3% year on year. AI-related vacancies rose 41.8% and now make up 4.6% of tech roles, with AI engineer postings up 74.4% at an average advertised salary of £78,821, Staffing Industry Analysts reported.
The Deltabase lens: Talent: AI depth varies widely across the sector: 34.7% of Salesforce's workforce lists AI skills, 32.4% at Microsoft and 23.5% at Alphabet, against 9.7% at Apple and 5.8% at Amazon.
So what: Where AI skills are thin, building them internally will usually beat bidding for scarce AI engineers at £78,821.
7 of 10: Technology Top 100 companies had lower average monthly turnover in H1 2026 than in H1 2025, even as announced tech cuts rose 83%.
| Company | Turnover: avg monthly, H1 2026 (H1 2025) | Turnover: new hires, H1 2026 (vs H1 2025) | Culture: overall NSS, 2025 (2024) | Talent: % with AI skills |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | 1.08% (1.14%) | 38,920 (+116.9%) | +7.8% (+8.5%) | 9.7% |
| IBM | 0.64% (0.86%) | 37,504 (+78.7%) | +6.4% (+6.5%) | 16.5% |
| Alphabet (Google) | 0.65% (0.78%) | 34,729 (+32.6%) | +14.8% (+12.9%) | 23.5% |
| Microsoft | 1.45% (1.45%) | 30,644 (+36.8%) | +10.9% (+12.4%) | 32.4% |
| Oracle | 1.21% (0.65%) | 21,530 (+49.9%) | −1.4% (0.0%) | 12.6% |
| SAP | 0.45% (0.63%) | 9,794 (−26.3%) | +10.1% (+16.0%) | 15.7% |
Source: Deltabase Employee Turnover data, average monthly turnover and new hires, January–June 2026 and January–June 2025; count across Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP and Arm Holdings. Deltabase Culture data, Employee Net Sentiment Score (−100% to +100%), 2024–2025. Deltabase Talent data, share of workforce listing AI skills.
Near-identical culture scores hide opposite trade-offs. On Culture, Amazon's 2025 NSS was +6.2% (18,337 reviews) and IBM's +6.4% (5,913 reviews), but Amazon scores +49.8% on Pay & Rewards and −33.2% on Work-Life Balance, while IBM scores −8.5% and +40.9%. On Workforce, IBM's H1 2026 turnover averaged 0.64% a month against 1.40% at Amazon, median tenure is 5.5 years against 4.1, and 44.6% of IBM staff work in Tech. On Talent, 23.5% of IBM's workforce lists cloud skills, against 5.4% at Amazon, where 10.9% list customer service.
See how your Human Capital compares with your Technology peers. Book a 30-minute benchmark walkthrough across culture, workforce and talent. Book a walkthrough →
Sources: HR Dive, citing Challenger, Gray & Christmas (2 July 2026); RTTNews (6 July 2026); Staffing Industry Analysts, citing APSCo, CV-Library and Lightcast (17 July 2026); Deltabase Culture data; Deltabase Workforce data; Deltabase Talent data; Deltabase Employee Turnover data.