diff --git a/share/spack/gitlab/cloud_pipelines/configs/ci.yaml b/share/spack/gitlab/cloud_pipelines/configs/ci.yaml
index c71ca66d38c..fde9aad3268 100644
--- a/share/spack/gitlab/cloud_pipelines/configs/ci.yaml
+++ b/share/spack/gitlab/cloud_pipelines/configs/ci.yaml
@@ -123,8 +123,8 @@ ci:
       variables:
         # Disable local configs to avoid issues on shell runners
         SPACK_DISABLE_LOCAL_CONFIG: "1"
-        SPACK_USER_CACHE_PATH: "${CI_PROJECT_DIR}/tmp/_user_cache/"
       before_script:
+      - - export SPACK_USER_CACHE_PATH="${CI_PROJECT_DIR}/tmp/_user_cache/"
       - - uname -a || true
         - grep -E "vendor|model name" /proc/cpuinfo 2>/dev/null | sort -u || head -n10 /proc/cpuinfo 2>/dev/null || true
         - nproc || true