The dynamics of the evolution of turbulence statistics depend on the structure of the turbulence. For example, wavenumber anisotropy in homogeneous turbulence is known to affect both the interaction between large and small scales (Kida & Hunt 1989), and the non-local effects of the pressure–strain-rate correlation in the one-point Reynolds stress equations (Reynolds 1989; Cambon et al. 1992). Good quantitative measures of turbulence structure are easy to construct using two-point or spectral data, but one-point measures are needed for the Reynolds-averaged modelling of engineering flows. Here we introduce a systematic framework for exploring the role of turbulence structure in the evolution of one-point turbulence statistics. Five one-point statistical measures of the energy-containing turbulence structure are introduced and used with direct numerical simulations to analyse the role of turbulence structure in several cases of homogeneous and inhomogeneous turbulence undergoing diverse modes of mean deformation. The one-point structure tensors are found to be useful descriptors of turbulence structure, and lead to a deeper understanding of some rather surprising observations from DNS and experiments.