diff --git a/bench/utils.py b/bench/utils.py
index 11053d3c..ffd66f89 100644
--- a/bench/utils.py
+++ b/bench/utils.py
@@ -105,6 +105,7 @@ def exec_cmd(cmd, cwd='.'):
 
 def setup_env(bench='.'):
 	exec_cmd('virtualenv -q {} -p {}'.format('env', sys.executable), cwd=bench)
+	exec_cmd('./env/bin/pip -q install --upgrade pip', cwd=bench)
 	exec_cmd('./env/bin/pip -q install wheel', cwd=bench)
 	exec_cmd('./env/bin/pip -q install https://github.com/frappe/MySQLdb1/archive/MySQLdb-1.2.5-patched.tar.gz', cwd=bench)