On her return to Australia, Beaumont worked as an editor for Melbourne University Press. In 1976, she gained a position tutoring in British colonial history at La Trobe University, before being appointed to a lectureship at Deakin University the following year. Promoted to senior lecturer, Beaumont's doctoral thesis was published in 1980 as her first book: "Comrades in Arms: British Aid to Russia, 1941–1945". In 1985, she was appointed Lecturer in British and Australian History at Monash University. After three years in the post, she returned to Deakin as a senior lecturer in 1988; her second book, "Gull Force: Survival and Leadership in Captivity, 1941–1945", was published by Allen &amp; Unwin the same year. Her research analysed the experience of the Australian prisoners of war captured by the Japanese on Ambon in 1942. Beaumont was promoted to reader in 1990.