A caretaker is a term mainly used in the United Kingdom, meaning a concierge or janitor. The term is usually used to describe those taking care of a public or industrial building, as it is not customary for such employees to work in residential buildings.

In politics, a caretaker government rules temporarily. A caretaker government is often set-up following a war until stable democratic rule can be restored in which case it is often a provisional government.

Caretaker governments may also be put in place when a government is a parliamentary system is defeated in a motion of no confidence or the house the government comes from is dissolved to rule the country for an interim period until an election is held and a new government is formed. In systems where coalition governments are frequent a caretaker government may be installed temporarily while negotiations to form a new coaltion take place. This usually occurs either immediately after an election in which there is no clear victor or if one coalition government collapses and a new one must be negotiated.

In much the same light, individuals who fill seats in government temporarily without ambitions to continue to hold office on their own are often referred to as caretakers. This is particularly true with regard to U.S. Senators who are appointed to office by the governor of their state following a vacancy created by the death or resignation of a sitting senator. Sometime governors wish to run for the seat themselves in the next election but do not want to be accused of unfairness by appointing themselves in the interim, and sometimes they do not wish to be seen as taking sides within a group of party factions or prejudicing the outcome of a primary election by picking someone who is apt to become an active candidate for the position. At one time, widows were often selected as caretakers; this custom has declined somewhat as women have begun to seek elected office in their own right on a routine basis.

In a similar vein, Nelson Rockefeller was said to be a caretaker Vice President in that when nominated for the office by President Gerald Ford he made it apparent that he had no further presidential ambitions of his own (unlike many Vice Presidents) despite having run for the office three times in the past and that in fact he had no intention of even running for a full term in the vice presidential office (which in fact he did not, Ford's running mate in the U.S. presidential election, 1976 was Senator Bob Dole.

For the pilot episode of Star Trek: Voyager, see Caretaker (Star Trek).