diff --git a/awx/main/scheduler/task_manager.py b/awx/main/scheduler/task_manager.py
index cba6161d83..9f4818bd37 100644
--- a/awx/main/scheduler/task_manager.py
+++ b/awx/main/scheduler/task_manager.py
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ import random
 from django.db import transaction, connection
 from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _, gettext_noop
 from django.utils.timezone import now as tz_now
+from django.conf import settings
 
 # AWX
 from awx.main.dispatch.reaper import reap_job
@@ -45,6 +46,12 @@ class TaskManager():
 
     def __init__(self):
         self.graph = dict()
+        # start task limit indicates how many pending jobs can be started on this
+        # .schedule() run. Starting jobs is expensive, and there is code in place to reap
+        # the task manager after 5 minutes. At scale, the task manager can easily take more than
+        # 5 minutes to start pending jobs. If this limit is reached, pending jobs
+        # will no longer be started and will be started on the next task manager cycle.
+        self.start_task_limit = settings.START_TASK_LIMIT
         for rampart_group in InstanceGroup.objects.prefetch_related('instances'):
             self.graph[rampart_group.name] = dict(graph=DependencyGraph(rampart_group.name),
                                                   capacity_total=rampart_group.capacity,
@@ -189,6 +196,10 @@ class TaskManager():
         return result
 
     def start_task(self, task, rampart_group, dependent_tasks=None, instance=None):
+        self.start_task_limit -= 1
+        if self.start_task_limit == 0:
+            # schedule another run immediately after this task manager
+            schedule_task_manager()
         from awx.main.tasks import handle_work_error, handle_work_success
 
         dependent_tasks = dependent_tasks or []
@@ -448,6 +459,8 @@ class TaskManager():
     def process_pending_tasks(self, pending_tasks):
         running_workflow_templates = set([wf.unified_job_template_id for wf in self.get_running_workflow_jobs()])
         for task in pending_tasks:
+            if self.start_task_limit <= 0:
+                break
             if self.is_job_blocked(task):
                 logger.debug("{} is blocked from running".format(task.log_format))
                 continue
diff --git a/awx/settings/defaults.py b/awx/settings/defaults.py
index 8d42af1ae4..05e7ed77e3 100644
--- a/awx/settings/defaults.py
+++ b/awx/settings/defaults.py
@@ -203,6 +203,9 @@ JOB_EVENT_MAX_QUEUE_SIZE = 10000
 # The number of job events to migrate per-transaction when moving from int -> bigint
 JOB_EVENT_MIGRATION_CHUNK_SIZE = 1000000
 
+# The maximum allowed jobs to start on a given task manager cycle
+START_TASK_LIMIT = 100
+
 # Disallow sending session cookies over insecure connections
 SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE = True