The dijet production cross section for jets containing a b -hadron ( b -jets) has been measured in proton–proton collisions with a centre-of-mass energy of s=7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The data used correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.2fb-1 . The cross section is measured for events with two identified b -jets with a transverse momentum pT>20 GeV and a minimum separation in the η – ϕ plane of ΔR=0.4 . At least one of the jets in the event is required to have pT>270 GeV. The cross section is measured differentially as a function of dijet invariant mass, dijet transverse momentum, boost of the dijet system, and the rapidity difference, azimuthal angle and angular distance between the b -jets. The results are compared to different predictions of leading order and next-to-leading order perturbative quantum chromodynamics matrix elements supplemented with models for parton-showers and hadronization.