Robinson's career began with theatre. In 1998, she directed the play Terms of Abuse; The New York Times' Sheridan Morley wrote that "Julie-Anne Robinson's production never quite manages to hold it all together [...] what might have made for a highly dramatic 50 minutes on television seems sprawling even as a short evening in the theater." However, Robinson received favourable reviews for the play Yard, which she directed later the same year. Scriptwriter Kaite O' Reiley earned the Peggy Ramsay Award for writing the play, which takes place in a butcher shop. The Daily Telegraph wrote that under Robinson's direction, "the cast's constant work with flopping slabs of flesh is both fascinatingly naturalistic and humorously gruesome." Robinson followed with Blagger in 2000; The Daily Telegraph's Charles Spencer remarked that it was "notably well-acted under Julie-Anne Robinson's direction" in his review. In 2000, Morley reviewed the play A Place at the Table as "tightly directed by Julie-Anne Robinson".

Robinson began directing television episodes in 2000, when she helmed an episode of the British soap opera Doctors. From 2001 to 2004, she directed two more episodes of Doctors, along with episodes of Cutting It, No Angels, and Holby City. In 2004, Robinson directed the first half of the miniseries Blackpool. For this, she earned a BAFTA nomination for "Best Drama Serial". When the series was released to American audiences the following year under the name Viva Blackpool, Robinson was among the nominees for the Golden Globe for "Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television". Robinson and Blackpool Writer Peter Bowker planned to create a spin-off of the miniseries that would take place in Funny Girls, a burlesque cabaret featuring male drag performers located in the town of Blackpool; However, this never materialised. Also in 2004, Robinson directed the play How Love Is Spelt, which Dominic Cavendish of The Daily Telegraph reported "risk[ed] becoming at once disjointed and schematic, but, in Julie Anne Robinson's full-bodied production, it keeps ringing painfully true to life."

From 2005 to 2006, Robinson directed two more episodes for Holby City and the first three episodes of Goldplated. Also in 2006, she began directing episodes for the American television series Grey's Anatomy, beginning with "Band-Aid Covers the Bullet Hole". The episode, which aired on 12 March, was seen by 22.51 million Americans. She also directed the season 3 episode "From a Whisper to a Scream", which aired on 23 November 2006. Robinson's first film, the made-for-television movie Coming Down the Mountain aired on 2 September 2007 on BBC. The movie earned Robinson her second BAFTA nomination, this time for "Best Single Drama". Following this, Robinson directed episodes of more American television series. She directed five episodes of Weeds, Private Practice, and Samantha Who? which aired in 2007 and 2008. Robinson's Grey's Anatomy episodes "Wishin' and Hopin'" and "The Becoming" also aired during this time.

In 2009, episodes Robinson had directed for Big Love and Pushing Daisies aired. In addition, Robinson entered a blind directing contract with ABC Studios, which broadcasts Grey's Anatomy. She directed the pilot episode for the ABC series The Middle; The sitcom was picked up on 8 October 2009 and Robinson's pilot aired on 30 September 2009 to an audience of 8.71 million Americans.

Notably in 2009, Robinson accepted her first feature film. She was signed on in May to make her motion picture debut directing Disney's The Last Song, a coming of age drama starring Miley Cyrus and Greg Kinnear based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks. The movie was filmed throughout the summer of 2009 and was released under the Touchstone Pictures banner on 31 March 2010. In August 2009, Warner Brothers announced that Robinson would direct The Last Summer (of You and Me), an adaptation of Ann Brashares' novel by the same name. Robinson's second feature film, One for the Money, based on a novel by Janet Evanovich and starring Katherine Heigl and Jason O'Mara, was released on 27 January 2012.