diff --git a/contrib/teamcity/gitian.sh b/contrib/teamcity/gitian.sh
--- a/contrib/teamcity/gitian.sh
+++ b/contrib/teamcity/gitian.sh
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@
 : "${TOPLEVEL:=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)}"
 : "${BUILD_DIR:=${TOPLEVEL}/build}"
 : "${THREADS:=$(nproc || sysctl -n hw.ncpu)}"
+: "${GITIAN_DEPS:="/opt/abc-gitian"}"
 
 COMMIT=$(git -C "${TOPLEVEL}" rev-parse HEAD)
 export COMMIT
@@ -17,22 +18,23 @@
 
 cd "${TOPLEVEL}/contrib/gitian-builder"
 
-# Build the base image if it doesn't already exist
-if [ ! -f "base-buster-amd64" ]; then
-  ./bin/make-base-vm --lxc --arch amd64 --distro debian --suite buster
-fi
+# The base image is created using elevated permissions, so just symlink to a
+# pre-built base image.
+ln -sf "${GITIAN_DEPS}"/base-buster-amd64 base-buster-amd64
 
 if [[ "${OS_NAME}" == "osx" ]]; then
   OSX_SDK="MacOSX10.14.sdk.tar.gz"
   OSX_SDK_SHA256="2322086a96349db832abbcadea493b79db843553a2e604163238d99fa058a286"
-  mkdir -p inputs
-  pushd inputs
+  pushd "${GITIAN_DEPS}"
   if ! echo "${OSX_SDK_SHA256}  ${OSX_SDK}" | sha256sum -c; then
     rm -f "${OSX_SDK}"
     wget https://storage.googleapis.com/27cd7b2a42a430926cc621acdc3bda72a8ed2b0efc080e3/"${OSX_SDK}"
     echo "${OSX_SDK_SHA256}  ${OSX_SDK}" | sha256sum -c
   fi
   popd
+
+  mkdir -p inputs
+  cp "${GITIAN_DEPS}/${OSX_SDK}" inputs/"${OSX_SDK}"
 fi
 
 RESULT_DIR="${BUILD_DIR}/gitian-results"