Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering, Wills Bros Civil Engineering  and John Graham Construction will submit tenders for the £155m project with an award due to be announced next summer.

The announcement comes just weeks after the contract for the A9 Dualling: Tomatin to Moy project was awarded to Balfour Beatty.

Scotland’s transport secretary Fiona Hyslop said: “We are committed to delivering a safe, reliable, resilient and dualled A9 between Perth and Inverness in line with our published delivery plan, which anticipates dualling to be operational by the end of 2035.

“Whilst the magnitude and complexities of this work are considerable, there will be no let up on progressing the dualling Programme.”