Bashar received a Bachelor of Science (First) in Computer Systems Engineering from the University of Sussex, United Kingdom, in 1988 before moving to Imperial College to complete his Master of Science (1989) and Doctor of Philosophy (1994) in Software Engineering.
He remained at Imperial College as a Post Doctoral Researcher until receiving a Lectureship in 1996 before being promoted to Reader in 2000. In 2001 he moved to the Open University as Professor of Computing where he was Director of Research from 2002-2008. From 2009-2012 he took a part secondment to Lero, The Irish Software Engineering Research Centre, as Professor of Software Engineering and Chief Scientist.
