diff --git a/dd-java-agent/agent-profiling/profiling-controller-openjdk/profiling-controller-openjdk.gradle b/dd-java-agent/agent-profiling/profiling-controller-openjdk/profiling-controller-openjdk.gradle
index 91e84d65bf..2239d135ce 100644
--- a/dd-java-agent/agent-profiling/profiling-controller-openjdk/profiling-controller-openjdk.gradle
+++ b/dd-java-agent/agent-profiling/profiling-controller-openjdk/profiling-controller-openjdk.gradle
@@ -1,6 +1,11 @@
 // Set properties before any plugins get loaded
 ext {
   minJavaVersionForTests = JavaVersion.VERSION_11
+  // Zulu has backported profiling support
+  forceJdk = ['ZULU8']
+  // By default tests with be compiled for `minJavaVersionForTests` version,
+  // but in this case we would like to avoid this since we would like to run with ZULU8
+  skipSettingTestJavaVersion = true
 }
 
 apply from: "${rootDir}/gradle/java.gradle"
@@ -26,7 +31,6 @@ Setup here is as following:
 * We compile with Java11 compiler to get JFR definitions.
 * We specify source/target as Java8 to get code that is loadable on Java8 - JFR defs are Java8 compatible.
 * We force IDEA to treat this as Java11 project with 'idea' plugin below.
-* We run tests only on Java11+.
  */
 sourceCompatibility = JavaVersion.VERSION_1_8
 targetCompatibility = JavaVersion.VERSION_1_8
diff --git a/dd-smoke-tests/profiling-integration-tests/profiling-integration-tests.gradle b/dd-smoke-tests/profiling-integration-tests/profiling-integration-tests.gradle
index 4f7db66147..54c9990c9d 100644
--- a/dd-smoke-tests/profiling-integration-tests/profiling-integration-tests.gradle
+++ b/dd-smoke-tests/profiling-integration-tests/profiling-integration-tests.gradle
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ plugins {
 ext {
   minJavaVersionForTests = JavaVersion.VERSION_11
   // Zulu has backported profiling support
-  forceJdk = ['ZULU8', 'ZULU11', '12']
+  forceJdk = ['ZULU8']
   jmcVersion = '8.0.0-SNAPSHOT'
 }
 
diff --git a/gradle/java.gradle b/gradle/java.gradle
index a75a67f345..d2ab140903 100644
--- a/gradle/java.gradle
+++ b/gradle/java.gradle
@@ -48,10 +48,15 @@ if (project.hasProperty('minJavaVersionForTests') && project.getProperty('minJav
     from sourceSets."main_$name".output
   }
 
-  tasks.withType(JavaCompile).configureEach {
-    if (it.name.toLowerCase().contains("test")) {
-      sourceCompatibility = version
-      targetCompatibility = version
+  // In some cases we would like to avoid setting java version to `minJavaVersionForTests`.
+  // For example we would like to be able to run profiling tests with ZULU8, but we cannot run it with other JDK8 implementations at the moment
+  def skipSettingTestJavaVersion = project.hasProperty('skipSettingTestJavaVersion') && project.getProperty('skipSettingTestJavaVersion')
+  if (!skipSettingTestJavaVersion) {
+    tasks.withType(JavaCompile).configureEach {
+      if (it.name.toLowerCase().contains("test")) {
+        sourceCompatibility = version
+        targetCompatibility = version
+      }
     }
   }
 }