diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 5df99c544af1..8a476581598e 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ RECEPTOR_IMAGE ?= quay.io/ansible/receptor:devel
 SRC_ONLY_PKGS ?= cffi,pycparser,psycopg,twilio
 # These should be upgraded in the AWX and Ansible venv before attempting
 # to install the actual requirements
-VENV_BOOTSTRAP ?= pip==21.2.4 setuptools==69.0.2 setuptools_scm[toml]==8.0.4 wheel==0.42.0
+VENV_BOOTSTRAP ?= pip==21.2.4 setuptools==69.0.2 setuptools_scm[toml]==8.0.4 wheel==0.42.0 cython==0.29.37
 
 NAME ?= awx