Arthur Barker joined the Department of Architecture at the University of Pretoria in 2010, after coordinating the BTech (Applied Design) program for 13 years at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) in Cape Town. He currently co-ordinates and lectures in the Professional Master’s program while teaching first year construction. He has been an external examiner at the Universities of Cape Town, Free State, Kwa Zulu Natal, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth, and the Tshwane, Durban and Cape Peninsula Universities of Technology. In 2016 he served on the Internal Working Group, University of Pretoria, for the Master’s Degree in Tangible Heritage Conservation. He is the Departmental representative on the Faculty's Teaching and Learning committee and the chair of the Pretoria Institute of Architecture's Education Committee. He also serves on the University's Document Collection Sub Committee. Arthur Barker co-ordinates the Heritage and Cultural Landscapes research field and the departmental Architectural Archive. He also serves on the editorial board of the South African Journal of Art History (SAJAH). He has reviewed articles for SAJAH, chapters for the book Architectural Conservation in South Africa since 1994: 100+ Projects, papers for the 2015 international Smart and Sustainable Built Environments conference and NRF research proposals. In 2012, he completed his PhD on the domestic architecture of a seminal South African architect, Gawie Fagan, and is currently supervising four PhD students.

His main research interest is the architecture of South Africa and, in particular, that of the Fourth Modern Movement. Allied foci are regionalist architectural thinking and the relationship between theory and design thinking.