diff --git a/.github/workflows/run_pr_tests.yml b/.github/workflows/run_pr_tests.yml
index 53be1fc4c..70404c73f 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/run_pr_tests.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/run_pr_tests.yml
@@ -108,13 +108,9 @@ jobs:
       - name: setup-ubuntu
         uses:  ./.github/actions/setup_ubuntu_build
         with:
-          llvm_version: 16
+          llvm_version: 18
           llvm_build_type: RelAssert
 
-      # installs clang-tidy
-      - name: setup-clang-tidy
-        run:
-          sudo apt-get install -y clang-tidy-12
 
       # These need to match the configurations of build_pr_cache to use the cache effectively
       - name: build initial config files
@@ -162,7 +158,7 @@ jobs:
               HEAD..origin/${{ github.base_ref }} | \
               grep -P '\.(c|cc|cxx|cpp|h|hh|hpp|hxx)$'` | \
             tee /dev/stderr | \
-            parallel --verbose -- clang-tidy-12 --quiet -p "$PWD/build/" "{}"
+            parallel --verbose -- clang-tidy-18 --quiet -p "$PWD/build/" "{}"
           # ^ When updating the clang-tidy version, the version used by the cmake
           # target should match updated c.f. the `tidy` target
 
@@ -181,7 +177,7 @@ jobs:
 
       - name: run clang-format
         run: |
-          # we've installed clang-format-16 in the docker via pip, which just installs it as clang-format,
+          # we've installed clang-format-17 in the docker via pip, which just installs it as clang-format,
           # so just use clang-format-diff and -b clang-format directly
           git fetch origin ${{ github.base_ref }}
           git diff --no-color origin/${{ github.base_ref }} | \