There are various exams that you can take but the most popular are the Financial Planning Certificate, they consist of 3 exams and once complete you can obtain a licence with the relevant body to provide financial advice.
I took them a number of years ago and they really were not to bad at all, the first one was all multiple choice, the second a mixture of multiple choice and true/false statements and the third one was in essay format provifing advice on a number of different financial scenarios.
There is an advanced FPC you can take afterwards, but that is purely optional and I would imagine that specialises in different areas, whereas the former ones cover eveything from pensions to stock portfolios.
Good luck with your studying (I never used mine, and did them for something to do while I was working for a Bank).