diff --git a/build-tools-internal/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/gradle/internal/ConcatFilesTask.java b/build-tools-internal/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/gradle/internal/ConcatFilesTask.java
index a58fcac60db75..55634c15f0524 100644
--- a/build-tools-internal/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/gradle/internal/ConcatFilesTask.java
+++ b/build-tools-internal/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/gradle/internal/ConcatFilesTask.java
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@ public void setAdditionalLines(List<String> additionalLines) {
     @TaskAction
     public void concatFiles() throws IOException {
         if (getHeaderLine() != null) {
-            getTarget().mkdirs();
+            getTarget().getParentFile().mkdirs();
             Files.write(getTarget().toPath(), (getHeaderLine() + '\n').getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
         }