David Brent is a fictional white-collar office middle-manager and one of the principal characters from BBC television comedy The Office, played by co-writer and director Ricky Gervais. He is the general manager of the Slough branch of the Wernham-Hogg paper merchants, and the boss to most of the other characters present in the series. Much of the comedy and pathos of the series centres on Brent's many idiosyncrasies, hypocrisies, self-delusions and shameless self-promoting (including, but not limited to, playing up to the 'documentary' cameras present in his workplace).

Brent can be seen as the latest in a succession of British comedy characters who occupy a minor position of authority and status, but have an exaggerated self-image and aspirations and deficient social skills. Other examples of the same character type include Captain Mainwaring in Dad's Army, Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, Gordon Brittas in The Brittas Empire, and Alan Partridge.

Brent was adapted for the American version of the show, and became Michael Scott, played by Steve Carell. He was later adapted to become Gilles Triquet in the French version; Bernd Stromberg in the German version, and David Gervais (an obvious amalgamation of the names David Brent and Ricky Gervais) in the French-Canadian version.