diff --git a/backend/app/AppComponents.scala b/backend/app/AppComponents.scala
index 247f7c14..a0037d93 100644
--- a/backend/app/AppComponents.scala
+++ b/backend/app/AppComponents.scala
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 import org.apache.pekko.actor.{ActorSystem, CoordinatedShutdown}
 import org.apache.pekko.actor.CoordinatedShutdown.Reason
 import cats.syntax.either._
+import com.amazonaws.client.builder.AwsClientBuilder
 import com.amazonaws.services.sqs.{AmazonSQSClient, AmazonSQSClientBuilder}
 import com.gu.pandomainauth
 import com.gu.pandomainauth.PublicSettings
@@ -75,7 +76,11 @@ class AppComponents(context: Context, config: Config)
     val ingestionExecutionContext = actorSystem.dispatchers.lookup("ingestion-context")
 
     val s3Client = new S3Client(config.s3)(s3ExecutionContext)
-    val sqsClient = AmazonSQSClientBuilder.standard().withRegion(config.sqs.region).build()
+
+    val sqsClient = if (config.sqs.endpoint.isDefined)
+      AmazonSQSClientBuilder.standard().withEndpointConfiguration(new AwsClientBuilder.EndpointConfiguration(config.sqs.endpoint.get, config.sqs.region)).build()
+    else
+      AmazonSQSClientBuilder.standard().withRegion(config.sqs.region).build()
 
     val workerName = config.worker.name.getOrElse(InetAddress.getLocalHost.getHostName)
 
diff --git a/backend/app/services/Config.scala b/backend/app/services/Config.scala
index 392e757d..5f91445c 100644
--- a/backend/app/services/Config.scala
+++ b/backend/app/services/Config.scala
@@ -158,7 +158,8 @@ case class S3Config(
 )
 
 case class SQSConfig(
-                    region: String
+                    region: String,
+                    endpoint: Option[String]
                     )
 
 case class BucketConfig(
diff --git a/backend/app/utils/AwsDiscovery.scala b/backend/app/utils/AwsDiscovery.scala
index 41d8bed4..13ccffbd 100644
--- a/backend/app/utils/AwsDiscovery.scala
+++ b/backend/app/utils/AwsDiscovery.scala
@@ -78,6 +78,7 @@ object AwsDiscovery extends Logging {
         transcriptionOutputQueueUrl = readSSMParameter("transcribe/transcriptionOutputQueueUrl", stack, stage, ssmClient),
         transcriptionServiceQueueUrl = readSSMParameter("transcribe/transcriptionServiceQueueUrl", stack, stage, ssmClient)
       ),
+      sqs = config.sqs.copy(endpoint = None),
       underlying = config.underlying
         .withValue("play.http.secret.key", fromAnyRef(readSSMParameter("pfi/playSecret", stack, stage, ssmClient)))
         .withValue("pekko.actor.provider", fromAnyRef("local")) // disable Pekko clustering, we query EC2 directly
diff --git a/backend/conf/application.conf b/backend/conf/application.conf
index 75cfc308..8035760e 100644
--- a/backend/conf/application.conf
+++ b/backend/conf/application.conf
@@ -207,12 +207,13 @@ ocr {
 
 transcribe {
     whisperModelFilename = "ggml-base.bin"
-    transcriptionServiceQueueUrl = "http://sqs.eu-west-1.localhost.localstack.cloud:4566/000000000000/transcription-service-task-queue-DEV.fifo"
-    transcriptionOutputQueueUrl = "http://sqs.eu-west-1.localhost.localstack.cloud:4566/000000000000/giant-output-queue-DEV.fifo"
+    transcriptionServiceQueueUrl = "http://localhost:4566/000000000000/transcription-service-task-queue-DEV.fifo"
+    transcriptionOutputQueueUrl = "http://localhost:4566/000000000000/giant-output-queue-DEV.fifo"
 }
 
 sqs {
-    region = "eu-west-1"
+    region = "eu-west-1",
+    endpoint = "http://localhost:4566"
 }
 
 # This will overwrite some settings from above