diff --git a/jenkins_jobs/builder.py b/jenkins_jobs/builder.py
index 3e7a497e9..2eae81859 100644
--- a/jenkins_jobs/builder.py
+++ b/jenkins_jobs/builder.py
@@ -144,6 +144,13 @@ class Jenkins(object):
             logger.info("Deleting jenkins job {0}".format(job_name))
             self.jenkins.delete_job(job_name)
 
+    def delete_all_jobs(self):
+        # execute a groovy script to delete all jobs is much faster than
+        # using the doDelete REST endpoint to delete one job at a time.
+        script = ('for(job in jenkins.model.Jenkins.theInstance.getProjects())'
+                  '       { job.delete(); }')
+        self.jenkins.run_script(script)
+
     def get_plugins_info(self):
         """ Return a list of plugin_info dicts, one for each plugin on the
         Jenkins instance.
@@ -279,8 +286,7 @@ class Builder(object):
     def delete_all_jobs(self):
         jobs = self.jenkins.get_jobs()
         logger.info("Number of jobs to delete:  %d", len(jobs))
-        for job in jobs:
-            self.delete_job(job['name'])
+        self.jenkins.delete_all_jobs()
 
     def update_job(self, input_fn, jobs_glob=None, output=None):
         self.load_files(input_fn)
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 5cc74b920..b4be8c00c 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 ordereddict
 six>=1.5.2
 PyYAML
-python-jenkins>=0.4.1
+python-jenkins>=0.4.8
 pbr>=0.8.2,<2.0