diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index a9c821b9..4adf80e2 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -38,6 +38,10 @@ option(BUILD_DOCS "Build FairMQ documentation." OFF)
 
 
 # Dependencies #################################################################
+set(CMAKE_THREAD_PREFER_PTHREAD TRUE)
+set(THREADS_PREFER_PTHREAD_FLAG TRUE)
+find_package(Threads REQUIRED)
+
 if(BUILD_FAIRMQ)
   find_package2(PUBLIC Boost VERSION 1.64 REQUIRED
     COMPONENTS program_options thread system filesystem regex date_time signals
diff --git a/fairmq/CMakeLists.txt b/fairmq/CMakeLists.txt
index 0d57a6af..eee7f8af 100644
--- a/fairmq/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/fairmq/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -223,7 +223,7 @@ target_link_libraries(FairMQ
     INTERFACE # only consumers link against interface dependencies
 
     PUBLIC # libFairMQ AND consumers of libFairMQ link aginst public dependencies
-    pthread
+    Threads::Threads
     dl
     Boost::boost
     Boost::program_options