diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.elife.k8s.yml b/.gitlab-ci.elife.k8s.yml
index 131fdd0e429cae9a8d33dce61edc471b87a65e5b..4bbdd28caa33b405c51fdeb3b6f54087883f4f12 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.elife.k8s.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.elife.k8s.yml
@@ -44,11 +44,13 @@ deploy:
     AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: $ELIFE_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
     AWS_DEFAULT_REGION: $ELIFE_AWS_DEFAULT_REGION
     ELIFE_CLUSTER_NAME: eks-elife-kotahi
+    TZ: Europe/Rome
   # before_script:
   #   - touch ~/.elife_k8s_config
   #   - echo "${ELIFE_K8S_CLUSTER_CONFIG}" >> ~/.elife_k8s_config
   script:
       - |
+        ln -snf /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TZ /etc/localtime && echo $TZ > /etc/timezone
         apt update
         apt install awscli curl wget -y
         curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/`curl -s https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/stable.txt`/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl