How many distinct regional dialects are there in the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

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I'd be interested to see what you find. I imagine it might depend a bit on where you draw the line between an accent and a dialect. What linguists would call a dialect, as in hard for other dialectal speakers to understand and part of the way to a new language, there is probably only one other than Standard English: Scots, as spoken in Scotland and Northern Ireland. That's distinct from Scottish Gaelic, a totally separate language, as is Welsh and Irish Gaelic.

Taking a very rough stab at it, I'd guess somewhere around 20-30 broad accents for the country as a whole.

Northern Ireland, I would say, has two (Protestant and Catholic) I've heard a figure of three tossed around for Scotland, which is about what I feel like I could distinguish. Wales probably has two (north and south)- so that's seven so far.

I feel like England has a lot more, partly because it has more people and bigger cities in general, but also because it has less national identity than the others. So my very rough division would be:
Cornish
West country
Bristolian
West Midlands
South central
Cockney
London multiethnic
Estuary
RP
East Midlands
East Anglia
Cheshire and Peaks
Yorkshire
Merseyside
Manchester
Lancashire
Yorkshire
Geordie
Lakes

That's very crude- near where I live now, people of Sunderland would be affronted to be called Geordie (they are Mackems) but I honestly can't heard the difference. Maybe a list maker who grew up here would say Cornish is not distinct from the kind of Westcountry spoken in Devon and Somerset.