[1] He studied at the University of Cape Town, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1981.

[3] As a member of St Antony's College, Oxford, he completed his Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in 1986.

From 1987 to 1989, Dubow was a British Academy post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London.

[1] Having been promoted to senior lecturer and reader over the intervening years, he was appointed Professor of History in 2001.

[2][3] In October 2016, it was announced that he had been elected as the next Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History at the University of Cambridge in succession to Megan Vaughan.