This study describes higher education-based teacher educators' professional trajectories, i.e. their professional activities and learning as developed throughout their career. Semi-structured interviews were held with 41 teacher educators from Ireland, Israel, Norway and the Netherlands. Findings show that teacher educators were recruited mainly from schools and universities. As novices, they received some, but no formal, support. Research and teaching are the main areas for on-the-job learning. Most teacher educators have positive attitudes towards research, are active researchers and contribute to teaching. However, they believe their respective institutes are not sufficiently appreciative of teaching, given that institutes do not prioritise practice-oriented research, nor align their policies with research findings. While socially coherent and idealistic attitudes are present among teacher educators, they are predominantly responsive to institutes' perceived individualistic and pragmatic expectations. Such expectations include contribution to their institutes' academic status through their academic publications.