diff --git a/.github/workflows/r.yml b/.github/workflows/r.yml
index 6d7e04aa7f580..2ec568acb915e 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/r.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/r.yml
@@ -121,7 +121,7 @@ jobs:
       fail-fast: false
       matrix:
         r: ["4.4"]
-        ubuntu: [22.04]
+        ubuntu: [24.04]
         force-tests: ["true"]
     env:
       R: ${{ matrix.r }}
diff --git a/ci/docker/linux-apt-r.dockerfile b/ci/docker/linux-apt-r.dockerfile
index 1f96fbe76bad6..630b96e1007b9 100644
--- a/ci/docker/linux-apt-r.dockerfile
+++ b/ci/docker/linux-apt-r.dockerfile
@@ -55,7 +55,11 @@ RUN apt-get update -y && \
         # R CMD CHECK --as-cran needs pdflatex to build the package manual
         texlive-latex-base \
         # Need locales so we can set UTF-8
-        locales && \
+        locales \
+        # Need Python to check py-to-r bridge
+        python3 \
+        python3-pip \
+        python3-dev && \
     locale-gen en_US.UTF-8 && \
     apt-get clean && \
     rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
@@ -77,22 +81,9 @@ RUN cat /arrow/ci/etc/rprofile >> $(R RHOME)/etc/Rprofile.site
 # Also ensure parallel compilation of C/C++ code
 RUN echo "MAKEFLAGS=-j$(R -s -e 'cat(parallel::detectCores())')" >> $(R RHOME)/etc/Renviron.site
 
-ARG ubuntu
-ARG python="3.12"
-COPY ci/scripts/install_python.sh /arrow/ci/scripts/
-# Need Python to check py-to-r bridge. Ubuntu 20.04 uses
-# python 3.8 which is unsuported for pyarrow
-RUN if [ "${ubuntu}" = "20.04" ]; then \
-        /arrow/ci/scripts/install_python.sh linux ${python}; \
-    else \
-        apt update ${quiet} && \
-        apt-get install -y \
-            python3 \
-            python3-pip \
-            python3-dev && \
-        apt clean && \
-        rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/* \
-    ; fi
+# Set up Python 3 and its dependencies
+RUN ln -s /usr/bin/python3 /usr/local/bin/python && \
+    ln -s /usr/bin/pip3 /usr/local/bin/pip
 
 COPY ci/scripts/r_deps.sh /arrow/ci/scripts/
 COPY r/DESCRIPTION /arrow/r/