diff --git a/test/integration/consul-container/libs/cluster/container.go b/test/integration/consul-container/libs/cluster/container.go
index eeddd1fe56..8cbacb729d 100644
--- a/test/integration/consul-container/libs/cluster/container.go
+++ b/test/integration/consul-container/libs/cluster/container.go
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ import (
 	"os/exec"
 	"path/filepath"
 	"strconv"
+	"sync"
 	"time"
 
 	goretry "github.com/avast/retry-go"
@@ -40,6 +41,16 @@ const ServiceUpstreamLocalBindPort = 5000  // local bind Port of service's upstr
 const ServiceUpstreamLocalBindPort2 = 5001 // local bind Port of service's upstream, for services with 2 upstreams
 const debugPort = "4000/tcp"
 
+// containerLock prevents starting multiple containers concurrently. This has not been confirmed as being necessary, but
+// it seems to help make the CICD pipeline pass without failures. These failures seem to be due to some form of docker
+// socket contention with errors of the form:
+//
+//	#1: error starting pod with image "docker.mirror.hashicorp.services/hashiderek/pause": Post "http://%2Fvar%2Frun%2Fdocker.sock/v1.43/containers/9b0e568744793e558d318af908c1052ab3d4d2f5a74c67b15d47a0570f141b1c/start": context deadline exceeded: failed to start container
+//
+// It may purely be due to the fact that starting containers takes longer than expected, and this lock avoids starting
+// the context cancel timer until after we have ensured the docker socket is freed up.
+var containerLock sync.Mutex
+
 // consulContainerNode implements the Agent interface by running a Consul agent
 // in a container.
 type consulContainerNode struct {
@@ -600,6 +611,8 @@ func (c *consulContainerNode) DataDir() string {
 }
 
 func startContainer(ctx context.Context, req testcontainers.ContainerRequest) (testcontainers.Container, error) {
+	containerLock.Lock()
+	defer containerLock.Unlock()
 	ctx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(ctx, time.Second*40)
 	defer cancel()
 	return testcontainers.GenericContainer(ctx, testcontainers.GenericContainerRequest{