Star Trek: The Next Generation officers and crewmembers seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation wear a jumpsuit with a Starfleet communicator badge (or 'commbadge' as it was sometimes called) on the left chest and rank insignia on the right side of the collar. The uniforms' sleeves and abdominal area are colored to indicate the individual's branch, with red indicating command; gold for engineering, security, and operations; and blue for science and medical (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint"). The division colors for command and operations switched from those used in Enterprise and TOS as Benjamin Sisko tells Julian Bashir in the DS9 episode: "Trials and Tribble-ations".

Beverly Crusher sometimes wears a blue labcoat above her standard uniform (TNG: "The Naked Now"). The blue tended to appear teal under certain lighting conditions in the later seasons and subsequent spinoffs. In some episodes of the later seasons, Jean-Luc Picard would sometimes wear a different uniform that consisted of a grey shirt with ribbed black shoulders and collar with a "bomber jacket" that was red overall with black ribbed shoulders, often worn open or very loosely fastened. The uniforms could be fitted with pouches for carrying tricorders and Type 2 phasers on the waist, and the early versions had a small pocket built in on the left side of the waist for carrying a smaller Type 1 phaser when appearing openly armed was not desired. The removable gear pouches were also incorporated into the uniforms used in DS9 and the TNG-era films from First Contact onward.

“We hated our space suits. There were no pockets in them. As much as they call it a stretch fabric, spandex in that configuration doesn't give all that much. It hid nothing.”
—LeVar Burton, on the first two seasons' uniforms

In the show's early seasons, the uniforms were one-piece jumpsuits made of Spandex, and sized slightly too small so that they would be stretched when worn and provide a smooth appearance. The cast disliked the uniforms' painfully tight fit and lack of pockets, and after doctors warned that they risked permanent skeletal injury, the actors persuaded the costumers to gradually replace them with wool uniforms. The wool uniforms, which most main cast members wear from the third season onward, are two-piece (shirt and pants) designs that lack colored piping on the shoulders and edges of the pant leg cuffs and have a raised collar. The collar of the shirt has a colored edge of a width similar to that of the original diamond-shaped shoulder piping. The spandex uniforms continued to make appearances throughout TNG, usually worn by extras in various scenes. These were later altered to lack the piping on the shoulders and trouser hems and include a raised collar as a cost-cutting measure.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Admirals wore numerous different uniform variations in the early years of TNG - beginning in the sixth season, a final design was settled on, featuring an untucked jacket with gold piping along a centered enclosure on the front, and rank pips (indicating the number of "stars"), encased in a gold square, on both sides of the collar.

The TNG dress uniform, which continued to be used in Deep Space Nine and Voyager, is a colored wraparound robe-like coat of a solid division color, save for black shoulders. The edges of the robe-like coats are piped in silver for field officers and in gold for flag officers.
Other uniform designs appeared briefly in individual episodes - always following the theme of a coloured or differentiated shoulder yoke. Examples include cadet uniforms in several episodes (including "The First Duty").

Wesley Crusher's 'Acting Ensign' grey costume was never specifically identified as a uniform, but it also exhibited a shoulder yoke design.

Theiss, the costume designer from the original series, returned to design the initial TNG uniforms. The costumes adopted from season 3 onwards and later series' costumes were designed by Robert Blackman.