At a glance
Bond University is hiring a continuing Assistant Professor A or B in project management. Here is the salary, selection criteria, work rights rule and deadline.
Bond University has opened a continuing, full-time appointment for an Assistant Professor A or B in project management, based in the Faculty of Society & Design at its Robina campus on the Gold Coast. Applications close at 11:59pm on Sunday 15 November 2026, and the successful candidate is expected to start in April 2027.
A continuing post is the first thing to notice. In a sector where fixed-term contracts and casual teaching have become the default for many early-career academics, a continuing appointment changes the arithmetic of relocating. The role is teaching and research, not teaching-focused, which means the person hired will be expected to keep a research pipeline alive alongside the classroom work.
What the role actually asks
The position sits within a discipline Bond describes as generic rather than tied to construction or engineering. The successful applicant will teach across discipline boundaries, which rules out a narrow specialisation as the centrepiece of the application.
Bond names four areas where additional experience would be favoured:
- Leadership
- Business transformation
- Finance and portfolio management
- Sustainable development
The formal requirement is a PhD in a cognate field plus extensive relevant industry or research experience. The desirable criteria carry almost as much weight: certification as a professional practitioner with the Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM), the Project Management Institute (PMI) or an equivalent body, and a strong professional network. Neither certification is mandatory, but the phrasing tells you what the panel will use to split a long shortlist.
Two salary bands, and why they're worth reading twice
Bond advertises two starting points. Assistant Professor A begins at $165,010.96 plus 12% superannuation, while Assistant Professor B begins at $138,836.18 plus 12% superannuation. The A band is the higher one here, which is worth reading twice if you are arriving from a university where academic Level A means associate lecturer and Level B means lecturer. Bond's naming runs its own way, and the panel will place the appointee according to skills and experience.
| Band | Commencing base salary | Employer superannuation |
|---|---|---|
| Assistant Professor A | $165,010.96 | 12% |
| Assistant Professor B | $138,836.18 | 12% |
Twelve per cent superannuation is part of the total package calculation, and it sits below the 17% employer contribution offered at several large public universities. A candidate weighing this post against a Level B lectureship elsewhere should compare total remuneration, not the headline base salary. For a wider benchmark, our guide to becoming a university lecturer in Australia explains how pay scales and progression sit across the sector.
Three years ago Bond advertised an Assistant Professor B in the same discipline as a three-year fixed-term post. This version is continuing, which is a meaningful difference in security rather than a cosmetic one.
Where the post sits inside Bond and the wider market
Bond is Australia's first private, not-for-profit university and runs three semesters a year, which lets students finish a standard bachelor's degree in two years. The university placed first for learner engagement and second for teaching quality in the 2026 Good Universities Guide, and the advertisement's claim of Australia's top university for teaching traces back to the 2024 Australian Financial Review Best Universities Ranking, where Bond recorded the highest score in the country. The full picture is on Bond's rankings and ratings page.
The discipline itself is expanding. The Project Management Institute forecasts a possible global gap of up to 30 million project professionals by 2035, a shortage driven by infrastructure spending and digital transformation, compounded by retirements among experienced practitioners. PMI's 2025 talent gap analysis frames the shortage as a barrier to business performance as much as a hiring problem.
In Australia, the demand shows up in job volumes. Industry training firm Priority Management reports that SEEK has listed more than 22,000 project management roles at points this year and that Jobs and Skills Australia has identified construction project management professionals as a national occupation shortage. That is the market a continuing academic post is competing with for talent.
What discipline-generic means for your application
The phrase “discipline-generic and not focused on construction/engineering” is the most important line in the advertisement for applicants. It means the teaching load will move across sectors, and the panel is likely to favour evidence of transferable delivery over a portfolio of infrastructure projects alone. A candidate who has managed change in a regulated sector such as health or government can outrank a construction specialist if they can show how their method travels.
The emphasis on innovation points the same way. Bond's project management programs teach predictive planning as well as adaptive and hybrid delivery, and the discipline lead's own research interests include systems thinking and sustainable project management, along with the role of artificial intelligence in the profession. Applications that treat project management as a fixed technical toolkit will read as narrower than the role actually is.
The practical barriers before you apply
Applicants must hold current work rights in Australia at the time of application, and the university will verify that status. This is a hard filter, not a preference, and it means international candidates without an existing visa should not wait for sponsorship to be arranged.
The appointment is also conditional on pre-employment checks: reference checks, a certified copy of the highest qualification, a working rights verification, and a Gender-Based Violence Declaration under the National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence 2025. Bond says people from diverse backgrounds, women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, LGBTIQ+ people and people with disability are encouraged to apply.
Certification with the AIPM or PMI is desirable rather than essential. The AIPM's RegPM certification is a competency-based workplace assessment, while PMI's Project Management Professional (PMP) credential is the more globally recognised option. Both are explained on the AIPM website.
How to apply
Applications go through Bond's candidate portal and require a current resume plus a cover letter addressing the selection criteria in the position description. The reference number is 201410383. Current Bond University staff apply through People Connect rather than the external portal.
Selection criteria decide who gets an interview. Address each criterion with a specific example and a measurable outcome rather than a restatement of the duty; our guide to writing a winning academic CV sets out how to structure that evidence.
Position-related questions can go to Dr Amir Ghanbaripour, Discipline Lead, at aghanbar@bond.edu.au or 07 5595 1567. The full position description and selection criteria are on Bond University's job page, and the role is also listed on AcademicJobs.
What happens after 15 November
Once the panel has assessed applications against the position description, it will place the appointee in either the A or B band and work toward the April 2027 start. That leaves a full academic year to prepare a research program and a teaching load across disciplines, then build a network that survives the first performance cycle. The question for Bond in year two is the same one every continuing appointment raises: whether the support that attracted the candidate is still there once the title is no longer new.
- higher-education-jobs
- bond-university
- project-management
- academic-jobs-australia
- assistant-professor