diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/docker/default.nix b/pkgs/build-support/docker/default.nix
index b8eda3d09673..75e279afdc37 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/docker/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/docker/default.nix
@@ -497,6 +497,16 @@ rec {
         # Record the contents of the tarball with ls_tar.
         ls_tar temp/layer.tar >> baseFiles
 
+        # Append nix/store directory to the layer so that when the layer is loaded in the
+        # image /nix/store has read permissions for non-root users.
+        # nix/store is added only if the layer has /nix/store paths in it.
+        if [ $(wc -l < $layerClosure) -gt 1 ] && [ $(grep -c -e "^/nix/store$" baseFiles) -eq 0 ]; then
+          mkdir -p nix/store
+          chmod -R 555 nix
+          echo "./nix" >> layerFiles
+          echo "./nix/store" >> layerFiles
+        fi
+
         # Get the files in the new layer which were *not* present in
         # the old layer, and record them as newFiles.
         comm <(sort -n baseFiles|uniq) \