diff --git a/build/bin/sage-pip-install b/build/bin/sage-pip-install
index 08978fe5717..71f436a4b47 100755
--- a/build/bin/sage-pip-install
+++ b/build/bin/sage-pip-install
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ PIP=pip3
 # We should avoid running pip while installing a package because that
 # is prone to race conditions. Therefore, we use a lockfile while
 # running pip. This is implemented in the Python script sage-flock
-LOCK="$SAGE_LOCAL/var/lock/$PIP.lock"
+LOCK="$SAGE_VENV/var/lock/$PIP.lock"
 
 # Trac #33155: Pythons installed using the python.org macOS installers
 # for Python < 3.10 identify macOS Big Sur and newer as "10.16", causing