Through empirical research on academics and veterinary surgeons, this paper focuses on identity and how it is reflected in, and reproduced by, anxiety and insecurity at work. Through three analytical themes: perfection, performativity and commodified service, we explore how these professions experience a loss of autonomy as they are subjected to competitive market forces as well as an intensification of masculine managerial controls of assessment, audit and accountability. We see these pressures and their effects as reflecting a commodification of service provision where the consumer (student or client) begins to redefine the relationship between those offering some expertise and those who are its recipients, partly achieved through the performative gaze of constant and visible rating mechanisms. Our empirical research also identifies sources of anxiety concerns in their attempts to achieve perfection against this background of uncertain knowledge and precarious contexts of enacting professional expertise.