diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index a248a91..526a598 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
 requires = [
   "setuptools == 82.0.1",
   "setuptools_scm[toml] == 10.0.5",
+  "vcs_versioning < 2",  # setuptools_scm 10.0.5 needs parse_version, dropped in 2.x
   "frequenz-repo-config[lib] == 0.17.0",
 ]
 build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"