IN Brief:
- Galliford Try and Balfour Beatty are targeting five remaining A9 dualling contracts.
- The packages cover approximately 92km and carry a combined estimated value of £1.94bn.
- Transport Scotland has adopted an NEC4 early contractor involvement framework.
Galliford Try and Balfour Beatty have formed a joint venture to compete for the final five contracts within Transport Scotland’s £1.94bn A9 dualling framework.
The alliance combines Balfour Beatty with Galliford Try’s Scottish construction business, Morrison Construction, and will target approximately 92km of remaining dual-carriageway work between Perth and Inverness. Framework delivery is expected to run from 2027 to 2035.
Five sections remain within the competition: Pass of Birnam to Tay Crossing, valued at an estimated £226m; Killiecrankie to Glen Garry, at £438m; Glen Garry to Crubenmore, at £336m; Crubenmore to Kincraig, at £344m; and Dalraddy to Slochd, at £553m.
Dalraddy to Slochd is expected to become the first framework call-off. Its scope includes new grade-separated junctions at Aviemore South, Granish, and Blackmount, together with carriageways, structures, drainage, earthworks, utilities, environmental measures, and traffic-management works along the Highland route.
Balfour Beatty already has direct experience of the programme, having completed the Luncarty to Pass of Birnam section. It is also delivering the Tomatin to Moy upgrade with Wills Bros, giving the new alliance established knowledge of Transport Scotland’s technical requirements and the route’s construction environment.
Procurement is expected to conclude before the end of 2026, after which successful contractors will join the framework and compete for or receive individual call-offs. The model replaces the previous approach of running a separate full competition for each major section.
Under the NEC4 early contractor involvement structure, delivery teams will contribute to design development, construction planning, risk reduction, and supply-chain engagement before the principal construction commitment is made. Transport Scotland’s framework therefore moves significant buildability decisions further forward in the programme.
The procurement model established for the remaining A9 sections is intended to preserve competition while creating greater continuity across packages that share geology, logistics, environmental restrictions, and specialist construction requirements.
Conditions along the corridor demand that continuity. Work must be planned around live strategic traffic, the Highland Main Line, rivers and watercourses, sensitive habitats, steep terrain, local access, tourism, and communities that depend on the road for daily journeys.
Weather also affects the construction programme more sharply than on many lowland routes. Earthworks, pavement, drainage, concrete, temporary traffic arrangements, and environmental operations will all be influenced by seasonal conditions, placing greater value on early surveys and realistic possession planning.
With contractors involved during design, access routes, haul roads, temporary junctions, compound locations, traffic layouts, and material movements can be tested before packages reach site. The same process can identify where structures, specifications, and working methods can be repeated across several sections.
The alliance gives both contractors a route to combine highways capability, Scottish delivery resources, specialist technical teams, and financial capacity. Large infrastructure frameworks increasingly favour bidders able to sustain design, commercial, environmental, digital, and project-controls functions over several years without depending on a single immediate award.
That continuity will extend into the regional supply chain. Aggregate producers, surfacing contractors, earthworks specialists, bridge subcontractors, plant operators, traffic-management providers, utilities businesses, and ecological consultants need sufficient visibility before investing in recruitment, equipment, depots, and production capacity.
A framework can provide a clearer pipeline than repeated stand-alone competitions, although its value to suppliers will still depend on the sequencing and certainty of call-offs. Long gaps between packages can erode retained teams and reduce the efficiencies the model is intended to secure.
NEC4 also places early warning and collaborative management at the centre of the contractual process, but ground conditions, inflation, scope development, environmental commitments, and programme changes remain commercially significant. Early involvement will be most effective where investigations are completed and risks allocated while the design remains capable of adjustment.
Transport Scotland has embedded apprenticeships, training, SME participation, social value, and carbon reduction within the wider framework strategy. Those commitments will need to be carried into package-level procurement and site operations rather than remaining at framework level.
The remaining sections account for most of the unfinished Perth-to-Inverness programme, creating one of Scotland’s largest forthcoming civil engineering workloads. Galliford Try and Balfour Beatty now enter that competition with a combined delivery platform, although framework appointments and the first package award remain subject to the procurement process.
