There may be a perception among academic staff that professional staff are remote from academic activities (Wallace and Marchant, 2011), however, recent research demonstrates that professional staff, across a range of roles and seniority levels, are interested and engaged in supporting positive student learning outcomes (Graham, 2012, 2013a, 2013b). The improved understanding of the work of professional staff that is emerging provides opportunity for substantial changes to practice and policy. Building on Whitchurch's (2008a, 2009) typology of bounded, cross-boundary, unbounded and blended professionals, this research shows that professional staff span all four professional identities and show movement towards the third space (Graham, 2013a). Although Whitchurch (2008a) developed her framework for professional staff at management levels, this research extends the framework to more junior roles, reinforcing Whitchurch's contention that third space work is "indicative of future trends in professional identities" (2008b, p. 377). Yet, like the overlap model (Schneijderberg and Merkator, 2013), the Whitchurch typology describes a linear continuum of professional identities from routine professionals through to traditional academics. This limitation may miss a deeper complexity of higher education professional identities, which is addressed in the proposed matrix model. Rather than a binary divide between professional and academic staff, or a continuum from professional and administrative to academic roles, a matrix structure as a framework in which to locate all university staff--the Roles Matrix--is proposed here in this article.