diff --git a/playbooks/roles/install-docker/defaults/main.yaml b/playbooks/roles/install-docker/defaults/main.yaml
index 98dbb13cd1..0f92e84217 100644
--- a/playbooks/roles/install-docker/defaults/main.yaml
+++ b/playbooks/roles/install-docker/defaults/main.yaml
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
 use_upstream_docker: True
 docker_update_channel: stable
+with_python_compose: True
diff --git a/playbooks/roles/install-docker/tasks/distro.yaml b/playbooks/roles/install-docker/tasks/distro.yaml
index 99fd589ac7..412b7d4a34 100644
--- a/playbooks/roles/install-docker/tasks/distro.yaml
+++ b/playbooks/roles/install-docker/tasks/distro.yaml
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 - name: Install docker
   become: yes
   package:
-    name: docker.io
+    name:
+      - docker.io
+      - docker-compose-v2
     state: present
diff --git a/playbooks/roles/install-docker/tasks/main.yaml b/playbooks/roles/install-docker/tasks/main.yaml
index de13ac878f..e340f703a9 100644
--- a/playbooks/roles/install-docker/tasks/main.yaml
+++ b/playbooks/roles/install-docker/tasks/main.yaml
@@ -34,26 +34,29 @@
       - libssl-dev
     state: present
 
-- name: ensure pip3 is installed
-  include_role:
-    name: pip3
+- name: Install python docker-compose if needed
+  when: with_python_compose|bool
+  block:
+  - name: ensure pip3 is installed
+    include_role:
+      name: pip3
 
-- name: Install docker-compose
-  pip:
-    name:
-      # The explicit pin of requests is a temporary workaround to getting
-      # docker-compose functioning again after requests and urllib3 updates.
-      # Unfortunately python docker-compose is abandonware and we will need
-      # to migrate to the new docker plugin system or distro packages, but
-      # until then this is a quick workaround that will get things moving
-      # again.
-      # The explicit pin of docker is required as py docker 7.0 introduced
-      # incompatibilities with python docker-compose.
-      - requests<2.30.0
-      - docker<7.0.0
-      - docker-compose
-    state: present
-    executable: pip3
+  - name: Install docker-compose
+    pip:
+      name:
+        # The explicit pin of requests is a temporary workaround to getting
+        # docker-compose functioning again after requests and urllib3 updates.
+        # Unfortunately python docker-compose is abandonware and we will need
+        # to migrate to the new docker plugin system or distro packages, but
+        # until then this is a quick workaround that will get things moving
+        # again.
+        # The explicit pin of docker is required as py docker 7.0 introduced
+        # incompatibilities with python docker-compose.
+        - requests<2.30.0
+        - docker<7.0.0
+        - docker-compose
+      state: present
+      executable: pip3
 
 - name: Install rsyslog redirector for container tags
   copy:
diff --git a/playbooks/roles/install-docker/tasks/upstream.yaml b/playbooks/roles/install-docker/tasks/upstream.yaml
index 743f06283d..fc54657a68 100644
--- a/playbooks/roles/install-docker/tasks/upstream.yaml
+++ b/playbooks/roles/install-docker/tasks/upstream.yaml
@@ -49,6 +49,8 @@
 - name: Install docker
   become: yes
   apt:
-    name: docker-ce
+    name:
+      - docker-ce
+      - docker-compose-plugin
     state: present
     update_cache: yes