diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index ad29fa4634..5441b0f4b5 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -3737,6 +3737,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "sysinfo",
  "tenant_size_model",
  "thiserror",
+ "thread_local",
  "tikv-jemallocator",
  "tokio",
  "tokio-epoll-uring",
diff --git a/pageserver/Cargo.toml b/pageserver/Cargo.toml
index 2531abc7a1..e5981460fd 100644
--- a/pageserver/Cargo.toml
+++ b/pageserver/Cargo.toml
@@ -55,6 +55,7 @@ serde_with.workspace = true
 sysinfo.workspace = true
 tokio-tar.workspace = true
 thiserror.workspace = true
+thread_local = { version = "1.1" }
 tikv-jemallocator.workspace = true
 tokio = { workspace = true, features = ["process", "sync", "fs", "rt", "io-util", "time"] }
 tokio-epoll-uring.workspace = true
diff --git a/pageserver/src/virtual_file/io_engine/tokio_epoll_uring_ext.rs b/pageserver/src/virtual_file/io_engine/tokio_epoll_uring_ext.rs
index 6ea19d6b2d..d8f9dcd132 100644
--- a/pageserver/src/virtual_file/io_engine/tokio_epoll_uring_ext.rs
+++ b/pageserver/src/virtual_file/io_engine/tokio_epoll_uring_ext.rs
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ use tokio_util::sync::CancellationToken;
 use tracing::{error, info, info_span, warn, Instrument};
 use utils::backoff::{DEFAULT_BASE_BACKOFF_SECONDS, DEFAULT_MAX_BACKOFF_SECONDS};
 
+use thread_local::ThreadLocal;
 use tokio_epoll_uring::{System, SystemHandle};
 
 use crate::virtual_file::on_fatal_io_error;
@@ -44,9 +45,7 @@ impl ThreadLocalState {
 
 static THREAD_LOCAL_STATE_ID: AtomicU64 = AtomicU64::new(0);
 
-thread_local! {
-    static THREAD_LOCAL: ThreadLocalState = ThreadLocalState::new();
-}
+static THREAD_LOCAL: ThreadLocal<ThreadLocalState> = ThreadLocal::new();
 
 /// Panics if we cannot [`System::launch`].
 pub async fn thread_local_system() -> Handle {