diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index f45fb23b..f1b6c2ef 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -15,7 +15,9 @@ RUN pip3 install --upgrade pip setuptools
 RUN rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
 
 # Python is Python3.
-RUN ln -s /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/python
+ENV VIRTUAL_ENV=/edx/app/registrar/venvs/registrar
+RUN python3.8 -m venv $VIRTUAL_ENV
+ENV PATH="$VIRTUAL_ENV/bin:$PATH"
 
 # Use UTF-8.
 RUN locale-gen en_US.UTF-8
@@ -39,8 +41,8 @@ WORKDIR /edx/app/registrar
 
 # Copy just Python requirements & install them.
 COPY requirements/ /edx/app/registrar/requirements/
-COPY Makefile /edx/app/registrar/
-RUN make production-requirements
+RUN pip install -r requirements/pip.txt
+RUN pip install -r requirements/production.txt
 
 USER app
 
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 2dab4116..41450b5e 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -85,6 +85,7 @@ upgrade: piptools  $(COMMON_CONSTRAINTS_TXT)  ## re-compile requirements .txt fi
 	mv requirements/test.tmp requirements/test.txt
 
 piptools:
+	pip install -r requirements/pip.txt
 	pip install -r requirements/pip-tools.txt
 
 requirements: devstack-requirements ## alias to make devstack-requirements
diff --git a/requirements/pip.txt b/requirements/pip.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..3360c60c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/requirements/pip.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+pip==20.2.3
+setuptools==50.3.0