Wing commander (Wg Cdr or W/C) is a senior officer rank used by some air forces, with origins from the Royal Air Force. The rank is used by air forces of many countries that have historical British influence.

Wing commander is immediately senior to squadron leader and immediately below group captain. It is usually equivalent to the rank of commander in the navy and the rank of lieutenant colonel in other services.

The equivalent rank in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and the Women's Royal Air Force (until 1968) and in Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service (until 1980) was wing officer. The equivalent rank in the Royal Observer Corps (until 1995) was observer commander, which had a similar rank insignia.

The rank was used in the Royal Canadian Air Force until the 1968 unification of the Canadian Forces, when army-type rank titles were adopted. Canadian wing commanders then became lieutenant colonels. In official Canadian French usage, the rank title was lieutenant-colonel d'aviation.

In the 1990s, the Canadian Forces Air Command (the post-1968 RCAF) altered the structure of those bases under its control, redesignating them as wings. The commander of such an establishment was re-designated as the "wing commander" (or "Wg Comd"). Like the United States Air Force usage, the term "wing commander" (as used in the Canadian Forces and again in the RCAF) is an appointment, not a rank. A wing commander usually holds the rank of colonel.

On 16 August 2011, the Government of Canada announced that the name "Air Command" was being changed to the air force's original historic name of Royal Canadian Air Force. Though traditional insignia for the RCAF was restored in 2015, there has been no restoration of the traditional RCAF officer rank structure that paralleled the RAF.

On 1 April 1918, the newly created RAF adopted its officer rank titles from the British Army, with Royal Naval Air Service captains and Royal Flying Corps colonels officially becoming colonels in the RAF. In practice, there was some inconsistency, with some former naval officers using their former ranks unofficially. In response to the proposal that the RAF should use its own rank titles, it was suggested that the RAF might use the Royal Navy's officer ranks, with the word "air" inserted before the naval rank title. For example, the rank that later became wing commander would have been "air commander". Although the Admiralty objected to this simple modification of their rank titles, it was agreed that the RAF might base many of its officer rank titles on naval officer ranks with differing pre-modifying terms. It was also suggested that RAF lieutenant colonels might be entitled reeves or wing-leaders. However, the rank title wing commander was chosen as wings were typically commanded by RAF lieutenant colonels, and the term wing commander had been used in the Royal Naval Air Service. The rank of wing commander was introduced in August 1919 and has been used continuously since then.

In the early years of the RAF, a wing commander commanded a flying wing, typically a group of three or four aircraft squadrons. In current usage a wing commander is more likely to command a wing which is an administrative sub-division of an RAF station. A flying squadron is normally commanded by a wing commander but is occasionally commanded by a squadron leader for small units. In the Air Training Corps, a wing commander is usually the officer commanding of a wing.^{[citation needed]}