diff --git a/gis/qgis/README b/gis/qgis/README
index 191357970e..5fb9af9437 100644
--- a/gis/qgis/README
+++ b/gis/qgis/README
@@ -15,3 +15,6 @@ Optional run-time dependencies:
  - R
  - saga-gis
  - TauDEM
+
+If ninja is installed, set NINJA=yes to use it for parallel builds that should
+be faster on most systems.
diff --git a/gis/qgis/qgis.SlackBuild b/gis/qgis/qgis.SlackBuild
old mode 100644
new mode 100755
index 1b6bd785c6..0de4b5e79d
--- a/gis/qgis/qgis.SlackBuild
+++ b/gis/qgis/qgis.SlackBuild
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@
 #  ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
 
 PRGNAM=qgis
-VERSION=${VERSION:-2.18.4}
+VERSION=${VERSION:-2.18.5}
 BUILD=${BUILD:-1}
 TAG=${TAG:-_SBo}
 
@@ -81,6 +81,11 @@ if [ "${SERVER:-no}" = "yes" ]; then
   WITHSERVER="-DWITH_SERVER=TRUE -DQGIS_CGIBIN_SUBDIR=$CGIBINDIR"
 fi
 
+WITHNINJA=""
+if [ "${NINJA:-no}" = "yes" ]; then
+  WITHNINJA="-GNinja"
+fi
+
 # fix double qjson target
 patch -p1 < $CWD/qjson.cmake.diff
 
@@ -91,7 +96,6 @@ cd build
     -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS:STRING="$SLKCFLAGS" \
     -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE="Release" \
     -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr \
-    -DCMAKE_VERBOSE_MAKEFILE:BOOL=TRUE \
     -DQGIS_LIB_SUBDIR=lib${LIBDIRSUFFIX} \
     -DQGIS_LIBEXEC_SUBDIR=lib${LIBDIRSUFFIX}/qgis \
     -DQGIS_PLUGIN_SUBDIR=lib${LIBDIRSUFFIX}/qgis \
@@ -99,8 +103,14 @@ cd build
     -DQWTPOLAR_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/include/qwt \
     -DENABLE_TESTS=FALSE \
     $WITHSERVER \
-    $WITHGRASS
-  make install DESTDIR=$PKG
+    $WITHGRASS \
+    $WITHNINJA
+
+  if [ -z "$WITHNINJA" ]; then
+    make install DESTDIR=$PKG
+  else
+    DESTDIR=$PKG ninja install
+  fi
 cd -
 
 find $PKG | xargs file | grep -e "executable" -e "shared object" | grep ELF \
diff --git a/gis/qgis/qgis.info b/gis/qgis/qgis.info
index fc678dba95..0189b0d045 100644
--- a/gis/qgis/qgis.info
+++ b/gis/qgis/qgis.info
@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 PRGNAM="qgis"
-VERSION="2.18.4"
+VERSION="2.18.5"
 HOMEPAGE="http://qgis.org/"
-DOWNLOAD="http://qgis.org/downloads/qgis-2.18.4.tar.bz2"
-MD5SUM="4b7607d66f1d91a827495facca487544"
+DOWNLOAD="http://qgis.org/downloads/qgis-2.18.5.tar.bz2"
+MD5SUM="dd2fdd649613a9ff14f2e2da86a59aa5"
 DOWNLOAD_x86_64=""
 MD5SUM_x86_64=""
 REQUIRES="gdal libspatialindex numpy psycopg2 pyspatialite qwtpolar"