Phase 7 · Pass the examination
The construction method statement
Around thirty minutes for a sequence that builds your scheme safely — and a generic answer scores nothing.
Who this is for:Chartered Member candidates ·Incorporated-Member candidates
The last section, the smallest, and the one most often left unwritten — which is the worst possible trade, because its early marks are the easiest on the paper.
What is required
Institution of Structural Engineers
- Prepare a construction method statement; the examiner is looking for a degree of practical knowledge.
- The answer must be tailored to your own proposed scheme and reflect the scheme design. A generic response is not acceptable.
- It must include all activities required to build the proposed structure, including addressing health and safety issues.
- It should be kept brief, with simple descriptions of each activity.
- The sequence may assume that notices to the local authority and to health and safety bodies have been given.
- Section 2e — construction method statement
- 8marksTailored to the candidate's own scheme; a generic response is not acceptable.
- Section 2e — construction method statement
- 10marks
From Exam Guidance and Instructions — Chartered Membership Examination, Institution of Structural Engineers.
Brief, and in sequence
The Institution's guidance is explicit that around thirty minutes should be sufficient for this section, and that it should be kept brief with simple descriptions of each activity. A bulleted sequence is the right form. Prose paragraphs waste the time this section does not have.
The frame the preparation guidance uses runs roughly: site set-up, then site investigation, then the works themselves in order, then completion. Under site set-up, that means things like clearing the site and erecting perimeter hoarding, carrying out a survey and establishing survey stations, putting up health and safety signs and notices, setting up the compound and its hard standing and access, and installing temporary services. Under site investigation: checking for existing above- and below-ground services and capping or diverting them, checking for below-ground obstructions, carrying out any special pre-construction requirements, and verifying that ground conditions match the design assumptions.
Those are the generic opening moves, and they are worth knowing. But they are not where the marks are.
Where the marks actually are
The instruction is that the statement be tailored to your scheme. So the parts that earn are the ones only your scheme needs:
- If you proposed precast or modular, the craneage, the delivery sequence, the temporary stability of units before connection.
- If you proposed a transfer structure, the propping regime and when it can be struck.
- If you proposed post-tensioning, the stressing sequence, the exclusion zones, the strength gain required before stressing.
- If you proposed top-down or basement construction, the propping, the dewatering, the sequence of excavation against permanent works.
- If the site had a constraint — a live building, a road, a rail possession — the sequence built around it.
Two or three activities of that kind, correctly placed in the sequence with their safety implications, are worth more than a page of generic site set-up.
Health and safety is part of the answer, not an appendix
The instruction is to include health and safety issues within the statement. The natural way is to attach the risk to the activity: "erect the perimeter scaffold with edge protection before slab construction begins", "exclusion zone during stressing", "temporary bracing to the first bay before the crane is released".
That reads as an engineer who has been on a site, which is exactly the practical knowledge the section is looking for.
A sequence that covers the ground
- 01
Site set-up
Clear the site and secure it, survey and establish stations, health and safety signage, compound and hard standing, access road and storage, temporary services.
- 02
Site investigation and enabling works
Locate existing above and below ground services and cap or divert them, check for obstructions, carry out any special pre-construction requirements, and verify that ground conditions match your design assumptions.
- 03
Substructure
Excavation and support, dewatering if needed, piling or foundation construction, and the sequence in which the ground is worked — this is where most scheme-specific risk sits.
- 04
Superstructure, in your scheme's own order
The erection or pour sequence, temporary stability at each stage, craneage and deliveries, propping and when it may be struck. These are the activities that earn the marks.
- 05
Completion
Removal of temporary works, testing and commissioning where relevant, and reinstatement. Keep it short.
Writing it in thirty minutes
Worth doing
- Use a bulleted sequence, not prose
- Attach the safety measure to the activity it belongs to
- Include the activities only your scheme needs
- Say when temporary works can be struck, and why
- Start it even if you are behind — the first marks come quickly
Avoid
- Write a generic construction sequence
- Spend the whole section on site set-up
- Separate health and safety into an appendix
- Describe activities that belong to a scheme you did not choose
- Write at length — the instructions ask for simple descriptions
Related pages and tools
- Chartered examThe five sections, what each is worth, and what the examiners say they are looking for in each.
- Incorporated examOne scheme rather than two, and a different balance of marks across calculations and drawings.
- Planning the dayTurning marks into minutes, deciding when to commit to a scheme, and what to do when you fall behind.
- Scheme designWhat makes two schemes genuinely distinct, why viability matters as much as difference, and how to appraise them.