I took Dan's idea, and then added a keyboard shortcut for it. I agree it would be best if we were able to set a default, but this workaround is working pretty good for me at the moment.

Great solution Dan, but I like Jadams's suggestion. Quote: "These columns should only need to be customized ONCE then remembered thereafter." There's the option to change the metadata to use different columns, and that's great, but this should not be saved on a per project level. I manage other editors and open their projects all day long and it's a constant waste of my time, having to reset the columns back to my needs. At least Dan's suggestion may be faster than the method I had been using. I haven't tried it yet, so I can only assume.

I have a solution. You need to add whatever metadata columns you want, arrange them and then create a view preset in the dropdown menu of your project panel (image 1). This seems to be independent of the workspace preset. Once your preset is saved, you just need to call it up (image 2) whenever you want it.

Yeah this sucks. I tried Stewarts suggestion and it doesn't give option to Save Changes as it is disabled.

Look at this thread:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/metadata-column-order-again/m-p/10782761#M240801

First, in WORKSPACES Menu, create or note the Workspace you are using.

1) Configure the metadata as you want in Metadata Display panel, then name and save the setting. The new saved setting should appear in the presets dropdown window. (you've probably done this).
2) Order the columns as you want in the bin.
3) In the Menu > Workspaces, choose Save Changes To This Workspace.
4) Open a bin and select Metadata Display, then preset you want from dropdown menu.
4) In the Menu > Workspaces, choose Reset to Saved Layout and your column order will revert to the one you want.

Yes this is convoluted and not intuitive at all.

Adding my vote, it actually USED to be this way in earlier versions:

Metadata Display Presets would save the columns used, but I think workspaces remembered the column position and sizes, so this way you could create a new project and always go back to the metadata as it was displayed exactly each time.

Whether metadata column order and sizes are stored in presets this time or in workspaces again, I'd love to see for this to come back.

One more vote for this. This is too Apple-like ("we know better than you do how you work") to not allow for true permanent customization.

Please fix saving on the metadata display. I set it up with my special settings and it keeps going back to some other default setting. I would really appreciate being able to select my display as the default. Thanks!

100% agree that metadata display should be tied to workspace, remember order and even be saved with the project

Please implement this as soon as possible. The Metadata Display settings SHOULD be tied to a workspace, without fail.

The order of my metadata columns resets every time I open the same project, so I'm having to arrange the columns into their proper order every time I open the project. Not good enough. These columns should only need to be customized ONCE then remembered thereafter.

The metadata columns and its location should have saved to the workspace but I also find it failing.

I have a set of metadata display that I like to use in the project panel and save as MyMeta.
I found that when I load MyMeta up, the metadata display column order is not the one that I've saved.

Then I set the metadata columns again for each workspace and save changes to each workspace and unchecked the option "import Workspace from projects".

When I create a new project, the metadata display in project panel resets to its default.

It seems to me, the metadata display and its order are saved to the project but not workspace.

If it can be saved to workspace, it'd definitely help a lot.

Now, my workaround is to create a empty project as my template with my favorite metadata display settings. And use this to create new project so that the metadata display is set to my preference.