ORAN: Market Update 2025

May 2025

As we move through 2025, the momentum behind Open RAN continues to accelerate albeit at a gradual rate. Once considered a bold experiment, Open RAN is a key pillar in the evolution of mobile networks, driven by the global push for flexibility, cost-efficiency, and vendor diversity.

Recent market projections underscore this momentum. The Open RAN market is expected to be worth between $3.98 billion and $6.53 billion this year according to recent industry reports, with forecasts pointing towards significant growth, possibly even reaching between $19.58 billion and $41.5 billion by the end of the decade! In terms of its share of the total RAN market, Open RAN currently accounts for about 5-10%, but that figure could grow to as much as 30% by 2028 according to Dell'Oro Group. These numbers highlight not only growing confidence in the technology, but also the need for telecom operators to adapt to an open, disaggregated model.

This technological shift is creating a ripple effect across telecom recruitment. For talent professionals and hiring managers, Open RAN presents both a wealth of opportunity and a set of challenges. The move away from proprietary, single-vendor ecosystems means there’s a demand for specialists in cloud-native architectures, software-defined networking, and virtualization. Engineers who can work across multi-vendor environments, ensure interoperability, and handle complex integration projects are now highly sought after - something our telecoms recruitment teams are seeing on ORAN projects across the globe. Equally in demand are professionals with AI and automation expertise, as these technologies are increasingly embedded within Open RAN systems to drive efficiency and predictive maintenance.

However, this evolution is also highlighting a growing skills gap. The pace of innovation in Open RAN has, in many cases, outstripped the available talent pool. Many telecom professionals trained in traditional RAN systems are finding themselves in need of upskilling. Companies that fail to invest in internal training or talent development may struggle to keep pace with competitors who are already embedding Open RAN into their networks. Specialisms in security is another area adding to the complexity. With its multi-vendor setup and open interfaces, ORAN introduces new vulnerabilities that require a deep understanding of telecom-specific cybersecurity. Professionals who can secure these disaggregated systems (especially at the interface level) are critical to ensuring long-term viability and trust in Open RAN deployments.

As Open RAN moves from pilot projects to commercial-scale deployments, the telecom industry stands at a significant crossroads. The market opportunity is clear. However, having the right people, with the right skills, in the right roles is key for success. For recruiters and hiring managers, now is the time to build talent pipelines, invest in training, and align workforce strategy with the open and agile future that Open RAN represents.

November 2024

Once described as the ‘Lego’ of the telecoms world – a simple but fair comparison – Open RAN’s potential hasn't had the desired trajectory as was predicted even a few short years ago. With its ability to assemble networks in myriad ways (rather than relying on the major vendors), Open RAN caused waves of enthusiasm.

Projections in 2021 by various firms suggest that Open RAN’s revenue and market value could grow exponentially during the following years with Dell’Oro once reporting that Open RAN’s total worldwide sales revenue could reach $10bn by 2025. This hasn't come to fruition and in 2024, the open ran market was valued at just over a quarter of that - $2.8bn. But why? What caused the once 'hottest thing in telecoms' to not fulfil its promise. Here are several key reasons:

• Technological Complexity and Performance Concerns: Open RAN introduces a disaggregated architecture, which complicates integration and can lead to performance issues. Achieving feature and performance parity with traditional RAN systems has proven difficult, particularly in handling advanced functionalities like massive MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) technology. The O-RAN Alliance's efforts to address these challenges, such as developing new front-haul specifications, are ongoing but have not yet fully resolved these issues. 
• Integration and Interoperability Challenges: The open interfaces of Open RAN require seamless integration of hardware and software from multiple vendors. This multivendor approach introduces complexities in system integration and operations, leading to potential misconfigurations and operational inefficiencies. The lack of mature systems integration models has been a significant barrier to large-scale deployments. 
• Economic and Investment Considerations: The total cost of ownership (TCO) for Open RAN solutions has been higher than anticipated. Operators are cautious about investing in a technology that has not yet demonstrated clear cost benefits over traditional RAN systems. Uncertainties regarding return on investment have led to hesitancy in committing to widespread Open RAN deployments. 
• Ecosystem Maturity and Vendor Support: The Open RAN ecosystem is still developing, with limited participation from major RAN vendors. This has resulted in a lack of robust, field-proven solutions and has slowed the pace of adoption. The need for a more mature and diverse vendor ecosystem is critical for accelerating Open RAN deployment

So while Open RAN holds significant promise for transforming mobile networks, its adoption in 2024 has been impeded by technological, operational, economic, and ecosystem challenges that were not fully anticipated several years ago.

August 2023: Open RAN: The $20bn dollar market?

Dell’Oro Group, the leading telecoms market research firm, recently predicted a huge upward swing in Open RAN revenues for the coming years, stating that 15% of the total RAN market by 2026 will come from Open RAN. Dell’Oro also forecast that revenue from Open RAN could reach close to $20 billion (USD), doubling the figure suggested by them back in February 2021. 

The UK continues to invest into Open RAN 

Whilst DellO’ro Group state “The Asia Pacific and North America regions are projected to dominate Open RAN investments throughout the forecast period”, the United Kingdom is continuing to invest further into this technology, with the UK Government recently offering £25 million ($30 million USD) as part of its Future Open Networks Research Challenge to fund telecommunications organisations and universities in 5G and 6G R&D, which telecoms.com suggests is essentially for Open RAN R&D. As explained by telecomtv, The Future Open Networks Research Challenge scheme will enable academics and the industry to “conduct early-stage research into open and interoperable telecoms solutions, such as open radio access network (Open RAN), for use in 5G and future networks such as 6G.”  Other Open RAN funding schemes have been launched in the UK such as £10m for the launch of the UK Telecoms Innovation Network (UKTIN), and a collaboration with the Republic of Korea on an R&D project to accelerate the development of Open RAN technology. 

How will this affect jobs in Open RAN?

Back in May 2021, First Point Group published an article stating “We are seeing an exceptionally high demand for candidates with ORAN experience, in particular, Solution Architects in RF & RAN Software, and also those with 5G Product Design, Pre-Sales and Sales skills all the way from Engineer to C-level. Our prediction is that this demand will continue to rise over the next two years as COVID eases and ORAN rollouts gather in pace.” This is still the same as jobs in Open RAN continue to be in demand throughout 2022. Back in May 2021, a quick search on LinkedIn showed 166 live Open RAN jobs. The same search in August 2022 displays 472 jobs – a 284% increase.  

David Taylor, Managing Director at First Point Group commented “OpenRAN continues to gather pace with a high demand for candidates with experience in this area and indeed a growing number of operators and countries trialling / backing it.” 

Where will this technology lead us in terms of innovation, flexibility, and types of roles in the market? Only time will tell, but it’s certainly going to be an exciting journey for all involved.  

May 2022: Open RAN in the USA: The $9bn dollar market

With a predicted market share of 31% in 2030, Open RAN is the telco gift that keeps on giving. According to a recent report by Research and Market, the global Open RAN market is projected to be worth $32 billion in just eight years’ time. The benefit of Open RAN has always been that it can reduce the total cost of ownership leading to increased price competition, and therefore lower the barriers to entry, enabling operators to deploy network elements from a range of suppliers.

Open RAN in the USA: A quick snapshot

Samsung are making big strides in the Open RAN market with a deal with Dish Networks, whereby the latter aims to cover 20% of the US population with mobile coverage by June 2022. The plan for Dish is to expand this to 70% by 2023. Mark Louison, head of the Networks Business, Samsung Electronics America recently commented “Our advanced 5G vRAN and radio solutions bring telco-grade quality and cloud-based agility together, building on these benefits to enable more customers to experience the full value of commercial 5G Open RAN.” 

Samsung aren’t the only company growing their Open RAN business, Texas-based telecommunications company, Mavenir, is expanding its Open RAN reach across the atlantic as it launches an Open RAN centre of excellence in Bonn, Germany to focus on developing Open RAN engineer, planning, design system integration and deployment. 

However, a recent article by Light Reading highlights that the deployment of Open RAN isn’t always plain sailing, Cellcom is taking down its Open RAN network in Wisconsin due to the difficulties it has faced in getting equipment for the operation. Whilst Parallel Wireless supplied the software, Cellcom’s purchasing power mean that it couldn’t obtain radios due to vendors’ minimum volume purchasing requirements. 

Open RAN Recruitment 

A quick search on LinkedIn shows that there are currently 236 live jobs in Open RAN,  30% of which were posted in the last 7 days and 86% posted in the last month. The Open RAN recruitment market is booming with companies such as Meta, NEC and Spirent actively recruiting for roles such as 5G Open RAN Software Engineers and Technical Product Managers for Open RAN, we only see the recruitment market getting more active up and growing. 

David Taylor, Managing Director of First Point Group commented:

“The demand for candidates with the right skillset remains in high demand for those telco companies who are hiring for jobs in Open RAN. This demand isn’t just limited to America, but across the globe. Open RAN recruitment continues as Open RAN itself remains to be a force in the telecommunications market driving evolution and change. It’s great to see the Open RAN recruitment market so active.”

Whether you are an Open RAN engineer looking for a new role or more information, it would be great to hear from you. Contact our specialist Open RAN recruitment consultants in your local region.

March 2022: Open RAN: European growth at 26% by 2030

Whilst APAC is the fastest-growing (and biggest) market for Open RAN with a predicted 35% market share in 2030 ($11.5bn), the European market isn’t lagging too far behind at 26% growth according to news outlet BusinessWire. Below we highlight the main Open RAN updates from across Europe. But before we discuss that, it’s worth noting how Open RAN is expected to grow across the globe over the next decade. As mentioned, APAC is expected to dominate the Open RAN market which Japan is leading the charge, however, it’s anticipated that China will take the number one spot by the end of the decade. North America is expected to have a growth rate of 31%.  

5G is expected to dominate the Open RAN market for the foreseeable future, according to BusinessWire, with Total Addressable Market (TAM) of $22B in 2030 and a growth rate of 52% which is significantly greater than the 31% growth rate for 4G by 2030. 

GERMANY 

Deutsche Telekom wants a multivendor rollout Open RAN to be a commercial option by 2023 with NEC and Mavenir to be possible participants. However, given that the equipment currently used for their 5G network is supplied by Huawei and Ericsson, this would mean either replacing this equipment or running two networks concurrently (which is unlikely).  

TURKEY 

US firm Parallel Wireless along with Türk Telekom and Juniper Networks are collaborating to deliver a multi-vendor Open RAN initiative to deliver state-of-the-art broadband communications within Turkey. Yusuf Kirac, CTO, Türk Telekom, said, “Within the scope of these collaborations, we continue our development, tests, and productization of Open RAN. Our collaboration with Parallel Wireless and Juniper Networks on this initiative is extremely important throughout our Open RAN journey, and we are confident that this collaboration will be a crucial step towards enabling state-of-the-art 4G and 5G broadband communications and new applications." This rollout will see a recruitment drive for jobs in telecoms engineers.  

UNITED KINGDOM 

Vodafone opened Europe’s first dedicated R&D centre to help the operator design its own Open RAN chips, reports telecomstechnews.com. Vodafone is investing €225 million over five years to its dedicated Open RAN R&D centre. Also, Vodafone has created the UK’s first live 5% Open RAN site made up of the following according to telecoms tech news. 

• Samsung: Virtualised Radio Access Network (vRAN) Solutions, as well as technical, product, and integration support.
• Dell: Common Off The Shelf (COTS) servers.
• Intel: Optimised solutions, including Intel Xeon processors, workload acceleration, and connectivity.
• Wind River: Providing its studio solution for managing containerised Open RAN CU/DU workloads, automation, orchestration, and lifecycle management of network functions.
• Capgemini and Keysight Technologies: Testing and integration services to ensure interoperability of the multi-vendor ecosystem.

With lots of exciting activity happening, resulting in more jobs in Open RAN becoming available, it’s great to see the telecommunications industry developing and growing in 2022. For information about the Open RAN recruitment market, contact a member of the First Point Group team.