LinkedIn Outreach Benchmarks for Outsourcing/Offshoring (2026)

Key Takeaways

In outsourcing and offshoring, the average LinkedIn connection acceptance rate is 26.1%. Replies to the connection note average 2.2%, and replies to a message after the connection is accepted average 9.2%. Those numbers come from 66,034 connection requests sent by 109 outsourcing and offshoring accounts between May 2025 and April 2026. All three sit below the cross-industry averages of 28.5%, 3.0% and 10.4%.

Outsourcing / Offshoring vs. the platform average

Metric	Outsourcing / Offshoring	All industries	Difference	Rank
Connection acceptance	26.1%	28.5%	-2.4 pts	32nd of 38
Connection-note reply	2.2%	3.0%	-0.8 pts	33rd of 38
Message reply after acceptance	9.2%	10.4%	-1.2 pts	29th of 38

Across the 38 industries with at least 50 sending accounts, acceptance runs from 21.8% (telecommunications) to 36.5% (staffing & recruiting). Note replies run from 1.8% to 6.6%, and message replies from 7.2% to 18.9%.

What the numbers say about outsourcing outreach

Outsourcing and offshoring is the most uniformly below-average sector of the twenty largest samples. Acceptance of 26.1% ranks 32nd of 38, note replies of 2.2% rank 33rd, message replies of 9.2% rank 29th. The gap between its best and worst ranking is 4 places, the narrowest in the phase-one set.

That narrowness is the finding. Most sectors on this list have a strength to work from: security converses well, construction converses well, marketing gets in the door. Outsourcing has none. End to end it converts at about 2.4 replies per 100 recipients, tied with software and with training and coaching for the weakest of the twenty.

One structural observation the data supports without explaining. Outsourcing firms are among the heaviest users of outbound as a sales channel, which makes them both a large sending population, 109 accounts and 66,034 requests here, and a familiar audience for everyone else’s outbound. Being on both sides of that exchange is a plausible reason for uniformly low numbers, and this dataset cannot confirm it.

If your numbers sit below these

The dataset says where an account sits, not why. From what we see in campaigns, three gaps come up most often in this sector, and they point at different problems.

Everything below the sector line at once. Given that the sector has no strong measure, an account behind on all three normally has a list problem rather than three separate copy problems. Fixing the list is the only change that moves all three.

Acceptance under 26.1%. The sector floor is 32nd of 38 already, so a number below it is low in absolute terms. This is the measure to move first, because nothing downstream can compensate for it here.

Message replies under 9.2%. The sector is 29th on this measure, so there is more headroom here than the ranking suggests: reaching the 10.4% platform average would lift end-to-end conversion by roughly an eighth without touching acceptance.

Further reading: 

• Improving your LinkedIn Sales Navigator targeting
• Personalising the message request without tripping limits
• The LinkedIn message follow-up formula

Frequently asked questions

What is a good LinkedIn acceptance rate in outsourcing and offshoring?

26.1% is the sector average, 2.4 points below the 28.5% cross-industry figure, ranking 32nd of 38 reported industries. Above 28% is doing better than the sector and matching the platform.

Why does outsourcing underperform on LinkedIn outreach?

It ranks 32nd, 33rd and 29th of 38 on the three measures, with only 4 places between its best and worst. The dataset establishes that the weakness is uniform rather than concentrated, across 109 accounts and 66,034 requests, without establishing a cause.

How does outsourcing compare with other industries?

It is the most consistently below-average sector of the twenty largest samples. End to end it converts at about 2.4 in 100 recipients, against roughly 3.0 across all industries and 6.9 in staffing and recruiting.

How this data was collected

Outsourcing / Offshoring is reported from 109 accounts and 66,034 connection requests sent between May 2025 and April 2026, drawn from the LinkedIn Outreach Benchmarks 2026 dataset of 13.2 million requests across 13,302 accounts. That report carries the full methodology, along with the breakdowns by sender seniority, company size and month that are not repeated here.

Two things to hold in mind while reading any of these figures. The industry is the sender’s, taken from their company profile, not the recipient’s. And only industries with at least 50 sending accounts are reported at all: below that, a single unusual account moves the average by several points, which is why some of the most extreme numbers in the full appendix are not published here.

Related industry benchmarks

• Financial Services, 26.0% acceptance and 10.3% message replies
• Health, Wellness & Fitness, 25.1% acceptance and 9.9% message replies
• Computer & Network Security, 26.0% acceptance and 10.7% message replies
• All industry benchmarks

Grade your own outreach against these numbers

Enter your own acceptance and reply rates and grade your outreach against the outsourcing and offshoring benchmark, plus see where you sit among all 38 reported industries. No signup.

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Data updated 19 August 2026. Refreshed quarterly against the source report.