DipExMed 2027: exam dates, syllabus and how to prepare

Short answer: the 2027 DipExMed is on Thursday 11 March 2027. Applications opened on 26 October 2026 and close on Sunday 31 January 2027. The fee is £296. It is 180 single-best-answer questions in three hours, sat online wherever you are with a remote invigilator. Results are due by Thursday 22 April 2027. Checked against fsem.ac.uk on 26 October 2026.

The 2027 dates

From the day applications opened that is about 19 weeks. The 2027 sitting is also later than usual. The last three were all in February: 28 February 2024, 18 February 2025 and 12 February 2026. A March date buys you a few extra weeks after Christmas.

There is one sitting a year. The FSEM says the exam is normally held once each year, so if you miss 31 January your next chance is likely to be the 2028 sitting. Applications that arrive after the closing date may not be processed.

Who can sit it

The DipExMed is not just for doctors. The FSEM lists:

• doctors with a primary medical qualification suitable for registration with the GMC or the Irish Medical Council
• physiotherapists and other allied health professionals registered with the HCPC
• nurse practitioners (or equivalent) registered with the NMC, with experience in primary care or exercise medicine
• international healthcare professionals registered with their own regulator

Others, such as personal trainers and social prescribers, are considered individually at the Faculty’s discretion, with supporting information such as a letter from an employer. The Faculty strongly advises an active interest in exercise medicine and some experience of delivering it in your job.

If you are not sure you qualify, email exams@fsem.ac.uk before you apply. If you apply and turn out not to be eligible, you may get the fee back less a 20% administrative fee.

The exam format

• 180 single-best-answer questions in 180 minutes. That is a minute a question. The regulations and the syllabus describe two papers of 90 questions, 90 minutes each, with a 15-minute comfort break between them. The exam page calls it one 180-minute paper with the break after 90 minutes. Either way it is 180 questions, three hours of testing and one break at halfway.
• Online with a remote invigilator. The FSEM runs it with TestReach. You sit it wherever you are with no test centre to travel to. An invigilator watches you by webcam throughout.
• One date on UK time. Everyone sits on the same day. The regulations describe a staggered start, usually between 9:30 and 10:00am UK time, so check the start time on your booking. If you are abroad, work out your local time early.
• UK practice. The exam is in English and based on UK clinical practice and national guidelines.
• Six attempts. Attempts made with a previous provider count towards the six. There is no resit sitting, so a fail normally means waiting for the next year.

Sitting it remotely

The remote format saves you a journey but comes with its own rules. From the FSEM’s candidate protocol:

• Run the TestReach system check at least 72 hours before the exam.
• Book your exam slot at least three days before. You still need to do this even after your enrolment email arrives.
• Have your passport ready. The regulations accept other signed photo ID, such as a driving licence, only as an exception.
• Use a private, well-lit room with a clear desk and no second monitor. You will scan the room and desk with your webcam before you start.
• Switch your phone off and put it out of reach. No smartwatches or Bluetooth earpieces.
• There is a scheduled comfort break at halfway and you may take one more. Tell the invigilator before you go.

Our advice is to do the system check as soon as TestReach emails you, on the computer and in the room you will use on the day. If a work computer will not let you install the software, you want to know in February, not the night before.

Fees, refunds and adjustments

The fee is £296, the same as the other FSEM diplomas. It is subject to the Faculty’s annual price review, so check the figure when you apply. You pay it in full with your application.

Withdraw before 31 January and you may get the fee back less a 20% administrative fee. After the closing date refunds are not normally made. Withdrawals on medical or compassionate grounds need evidence and are looked at individually.

Deferral to the next sitting may be allowed with a medical report. The FSEM’s examples are pregnancy-related problems or illness, a due date close to the exam or enough discomfort to affect your performance. The fee carries over, though you pay any annual increase.

If you need reasonable adjustments, ask for them when you apply. You need original medical evidence. For dyslexia the FSEM asks for an educational psychologist’s report.

Pass mark, results and what you get

The pass mark is set in advance for each paper by standard setting. You pass if you meet or beat it. It is not a fixed percentage, so it moves from year to year.

In 2026 the mean score was 66.8% and the pass mark was also lower, at 59%. That is how standard setting works: the pass mark is set against how hard the questions are, so a harder paper gets a lower one. Between 72% and 80% of candidates have passed in each of the last three years. The figures are from the FSEM’s examination assessment metrics.

Results come no later than six weeks after the exam. You get your overall mark. If you pass, a certificate follows in the post. You can then apply for Diplomate Membership of the FSEM and use the post-nominals DFSEM(UK) once your membership is ratified.

One thing it is not: a licence to practise sport and exercise medicine or a pitch-side qualification. The FSEM is clear that it is an assessment of knowledge.

The syllabus: seven areas

1. Physical activity guidelines and epidemiology
2. Physiology of exercise and nutrition in health and disease
3. Physical activity in long-term conditions
4. Special groups and considerations
5. Behaviour change theories
6. Risks and contraindications
7. Systems approach

The FSEM publishes no weighting between them, so none of the seven is safe to skip. The full DipExMed syllabus sets out the learning outcomes under each area.

Despite the Faculty’s name this is not a sports injury exam. It is about prescribing activity as treatment. You need the UK and WHO guidelines for every age group. You need to know how to adapt exercise for heart and lung disease, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, mental illness and neurological conditions. You need to know when to stop or investigate. And you need the conversations that help someone change.

Long-term conditions has the longest list of conditions. Behaviour change and the systems approach are the easiest to underrate. Motivational interviewing, goal setting, relapse prevention and the seven pillars of governance are all in the syllabus. So are the global recommendations for societies, environments, individuals and systems.

What to read

The FSEM reading list dates from October 2023. Start with the free parts: the UK Chief Medical Officers’ Physical Activity Guidelines (2019), the WHO 2020 guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour, the WHO Global Action Plan on Physical Activity 2018 to 2030 and Moving Medicine. Most of the rest are textbooks. Use them for the topics you find hard rather than reading them cover to cover.

Questions are set to UK practice, so the NICE guidance for the common long-term conditions matters as much as the textbooks.

A realistic plan for the next 19 weeks

Nineteen weeks is a comfortable run-up if you start soon and keep it steady. This is how we would split it around a full-time job.

• Late October to Christmas: apply, then learn the numbers. Get the application in while it is on your mind. Then start with the guidelines the whole paper leans on: the UK targets for every age group, intensity and METs, how activity is measured and who is least active. Move on to physiology, nutrition, environment and testing.
• January: safety first, then long-term conditions. Risks and contraindications come first because they run through everything else: risk assessment before activity, the warning signs that mean stop, when to investigate further, overtraining and low energy availability. Then work through the long-term conditions a few at a time.
• February: special groups, behaviour change and systems. Pregnancy and after birth, children, older adults and disability. Then the behaviour change models and the systems approach.
• The last fortnight: a full timed paper. Sit 180 questions in 180 minutes in one go, with the break at halfway. Spend the time that is left only on the areas it shows up.

Little and often works better than cramming at weekends. Twenty minutes of questions on a weekday evening adds up over 19 weeks.

How this fits the platform

The Core Calendar builds a week-by-week plan back from 11 March around the time you actually have. It sits in the DipExMed hub with the question bank of 300 single-best-answer questions across eleven modules mapped to the seven FSEM areas. There is a timed mock of two 90-question papers as on the day. You also get the eleven-chapter revision guide, Core Compass to find your weakest modules and the Core 10, ten questions a day. Access is £49.99 for 12 months as a one-off payment with no auto-renewal. You can try ten questions free first.

Quick answers

Dates, fees and rules are set by the FSEM and can change, so check fsem.ac.uk before you apply. Core Revision is independent and not affiliated with the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine UK.