Elleke Boehmer started her career lecturing in English and postcolonial literature at the Universities of Exeter and Leeds. In 2000 she moved to a chair in colonial and postcolonial literature at Nottingham Trent University and in 2004 and took up the Hildred Carlile chair in English at Royal Holloway, University of London. In 2019 Boehmer was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, UK. She is an Honorary Fellow of St John's College, Oxford.