diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 84cf09f7a..118ccb047 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -192,17 +192,6 @@ before_install:
        sudo apt install libvtk7-dev
      fi
    fi
-- $PY_EXE --version
-# get pip
-- curl -0 https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
-- $PY_EXE get-pip.py --user
-- echo "Using Python executable $PY_EXE"
-- $PY_EXE --version
-- $PY_EXE -m pip --version
-# setuptools may be out of date on osx
-- $PY_EXE -m pip install --user -U pip setuptools wheel
-# ensure python bin dir exists (and coverage dependencies installed)
-- $PY_EXE -m pip install --user -U nose codecov coveralls requests
 # for counting clones, excluding ours
 - |
    if [[ -n "$GITHUB_API_TOKEN" ]]; then
@@ -212,7 +201,7 @@ before_install:
      # count unique clones, excluding travis, and print total
      TRAVIS_REPO_SLUG=CCPPETMR/SIRF-SuperBuild gh_stats_count -k uniques
    fi
-- $PY_EXE -m pip freeze
+- $PY_EXE --version
 # ccache compiler override
 - ln -s "$(which ccache)" g++
 - ln -s "$(which ccache)" g++-6
@@ -222,6 +211,17 @@ before_install:
 - ln -s "$(which ccache)" gcc-7
 - export PATH="$PWD:$PATH"
 - popd
+# get pip
+- curl -0 https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
+- $PY_EXE get-pip.py --user
+- echo "Using Python executable $PY_EXE"
+- $PY_EXE --version
+- $PY_EXE -m pip --version
+# setuptools may be out of date on osx
+- $PY_EXE -m pip install --user -U pip setuptools wheel
+- $PY_EXE -m pip freeze
+- $PY_EXE -m pip install --user -r requirements.txt
+- $PY_EXE -m pip install --user -r ci-requirements.txt
 # no point re-downloading SIRF - just use local version
 # N.B.: don't put into build matrix to allow caching.
 - BUILD_FLAGS="$BUILD_FLAGS -DPYVER=$PYMVER -DSIRF_SOURCE_DIR:PATH=$PWD -DDISABLE_GIT_CHECKOUT_SIRF=ON"
@@ -233,7 +233,6 @@ before_install:
 - echo "cmake flags $BUILD_FLAGS $EXTRA_BUILD_FLAGS"
 
 install:
-- $PY_EXE -m pip install --user --only-binary=numpy,scipy,matplotlib numpy scipy matplotlib deprecation nibabel
 - cmake $BUILD_FLAGS $EXTRA_BUILD_FLAGS .
 # Job may timeout (>50min) if no ccache, otherwise should be <1min:
 - make
diff --git a/ci-requirements.txt b/ci-requirements.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..6103052b6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ci-requirements.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+coveralls
+coverage
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..01cf6aeff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+numpy --only-binary=numpy
+scipy --only-binary=scipy
+matplotlib --only-binary=matplotlib
+docopt
+psutil
+nose
+deprecation
+nibabel  # optional