diff --git a/conf/common/build.yml b/conf/common/build.yml
index 0c5b556e04b839c83faa35503c5cf418cb4de830..903a187824bdb8607f8f08ee0223efa39af92ae0 100644
--- a/conf/common/build.yml
+++ b/conf/common/build.yml
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ spack:
 
 icon:
   # The command that will be used to build icon-nwp with spack
-  build_cmd: "icon-nwp@%ICON.VERSION%% %SPACK.COMPILER%"
+  build_cmd: "icon-nwp@%^ICON.VERSION%% %^SPACK.COMPILER%"
   # In LRZ we used the following command to point to a specific versio of openmpi:
   # build_cmd: "icon-nwp@%ICON.VERSION%% %SPACK.COMPILER% ^openmpi/amct7nx"
   # In LMU we used the following command to build the appropriate a version of openmpi works with slurm:
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ icon:
   version: master # The latest release at the moment of creating this file was 2.6.5-nwp0
 
 dwdicontools:
-  build_cmd: "dwd-icon-tools% %SPACK.COMPILER%"
+  build_cmd: "dwd-icon-tools% %^SPACK.COMPILER%"
   load_cmd: build_cmd