diff --git a/pkgs/development/python-modules/sentence-transformers/default.nix b/pkgs/development/python-modules/sentence-transformers/default.nix
index 3803dc4d29c6..48743c6f6ebd 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/python-modules/sentence-transformers/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/python-modules/sentence-transformers/default.nix
@@ -4,9 +4,12 @@
 , huggingface-hub
 , nltk
 , numpy
+, pytestCheckHook
+, pythonOlder
 , scikit-learn
 , scipy
 , sentencepiece
+, setuptools
 , tokenizers
 , torch
 , torchvision
@@ -17,7 +20,9 @@
 buildPythonPackage rec {
   pname = "sentence-transformers";
   version = "2.5.1";
-  format = "setuptools";
+  pyproject = true;
+
+  disabled = pythonOlder "3.8";
 
   src = fetchFromGitHub {
     owner = "UKPLab";
@@ -26,7 +31,11 @@ buildPythonPackage rec {
     hash = "sha256-HIOizBf8YnPAj95cG1HopO9B/bhAmT0u3q5CM6POEjQ=";
   };
 
-  propagatedBuildInputs = [
+  build-system = [
+    setuptools
+  ];
+
+  dependencies = [
     huggingface-hub
     nltk
     numpy
@@ -40,14 +49,37 @@ buildPythonPackage rec {
     transformers
   ];
 
-  pythonImportsCheck = [ "sentence_transformers" ];
+  nativeCheckInputs = [
+    pytestCheckHook
+  ];
 
-  doCheck = false; # tests fail at build_ext
+  pythonImportsCheck = [
+    "sentence_transformers"
+  ];
+
+  disabledTests = [
+    # Tests require network access
+    "test_simple_encode"
+    "test_paraphrase_mining"
+    "test_cmnrl_same_grad"
+    "test_LabelAccuracyEvaluator"
+    "test_ParaphraseMiningEvaluator"
+  ];
+
+  disabledTestPaths = [
+    # Tests require network access
+    "tests/test_pretrained_stsb.py"
+    "tests/test_sentence_transformer.py"
+    "tests/test_compute_embeddings.py"
+    "tests/test_multi_process.py"
+    "tests/test_cross_encoder.py"
+    "tests/test_train_stsb.py"
+  ];
 
   meta = with lib; {
     description = "Multilingual Sentence & Image Embeddings with BERT";
     homepage = "https://github.com/UKPLab/sentence-transformers";
-    changelog = "https://github.com/UKPLab/sentence-transformers/releases/tag/${src.rev}";
+    changelog = "https://github.com/UKPLab/sentence-transformers/releases/tag/${version}";
     license = licenses.asl20;
     maintainers = with maintainers; [ dit7ya ];
   };