The level scheme of 157Er has been extended from a spin region where the nucleus behaves as a prolate rotor to a region where the spin is produced by the alignment of all or most of the available valence nucleons along the symmetry axis of a weakly deformed oblate shape. The level scheme was established at high spin using up to four-fold gamma -ray coincidences detected in the Eurogam spectrometer following the reaction 114Cd(48Ca,5n)157Er at a bombarding energy of 210 MeV. Particularly favoured states have been established at IK=69/2+, 81/2+, 71/2+, 77/2-, 87-/2 and 89-/2. Specific single-particle configurations are assigned to these special states by comparison with cranked Nilsson-Strutinsky calculations. These states are related to structures observed in the neighbouring nuclei 158Er and 157Ho. These data provide the spectrum of single-particle states for the lowest lying valence orbitals above the 146Gd closed core.