The research aimed to ascertain how early career academics conceptualised their academic role and practice over time and what might account for this. A set of longitudinal interviews over one year, three per participant, formed the data set. The research is situated within a constructivist paradigm and adopted a reflexive, interpretative approach to data collection and analysis. An iterative process of qualitative data analysis was used, with themes inductively generated from the data, using first open coding and then qualitative content analysis. The final result was a conceptual framework of academic professional identity