diff --git a/projects/vdk-plugins/.plugin-common.yml b/projects/vdk-plugins/.plugin-common.yml
index 4e6f1091af..95e0f7b6f3 100644
--- a/projects/vdk-plugins/.plugin-common.yml
+++ b/projects/vdk-plugins/.plugin-common.yml
@@ -51,6 +51,7 @@
   extends: .build-plugin
 
 .release-plugin:
+  image: "python:3.10"
   stage: release
   before_script:
     - export VDK_PATCH_VERSION=${CI_PIPELINE_ID}
@@ -89,7 +90,7 @@
     - echo "Build and release vdk image of plugin $PLUGIN_NAME"
     - cd $PLUGIN_NAME/ || exit 1
     - sed -ri "s/__version__ = \"([[:digit:]]\.[[:digit:]]\.).*\"$/__version__ = \"\1${VDK_PATCH_VERSION}\"/g" setup.py
-    - apk add --no-cache git bash python3
+    - apk add --no-cache git bash python3 py3-pip
     - python3 -V
     - python3 -m pip install -U setuptools configparser
     - export VDK_PACKAGE=$(python3 setup.py --name)
diff --git a/projects/vdk-plugins/quickstart-vdk/.plugin-ci.yml b/projects/vdk-plugins/quickstart-vdk/.plugin-ci.yml
index 81a743a29b..3986cb59a4 100644
--- a/projects/vdk-plugins/quickstart-vdk/.plugin-ci.yml
+++ b/projects/vdk-plugins/quickstart-vdk/.plugin-ci.yml
@@ -1,13 +1,6 @@
 # Copyright 2021-2023 VMware, Inc.
 # SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
 
-image: "python:3.7"
-
-variables:
-  DOCKER_HOST: tcp://localhost:2375
-  DOCKER_DRIVER: overlay2
-  DOCKER_TLS_CERTDIR: ""
-
 # Add all quickstart-vdk dependencies locations which trigger the dependency release when changed.
 # In this way, quickstart-vdk will always be tested before one or more dependencies are changed, and
 # this is important since quickstart-vdk has unpinned dependencies and when they are upgraded,
@@ -78,6 +71,7 @@ quickstart-vdk-release-candidate-base-image:
   extends: .release-vdk-image
 
 quickstart-vdk-release-acceptance-test:
+  image: "python:3.10"
   stage: pre_release_test
   before_script:
     - export VDK_PATCH_VERSION=${CI_PIPELINE_ID}.dev${CI_PIPELINE_IID}