MI5 is launching an ambitious campaign to recruit intelligence officers to convince the thousands of Jihadi extremists it is monitoring to spy for them.

A staggering 700 Britons are thought to be fighting alongside ISIS extremists in Iraq and Syria while an estimated 300 have already returned to the UK.

It will be the responsibility of operational intelligence officers - known as 'handlers' - to convince them into providing vital information to the security services instead.

Successful candidates will receive £41,900 salary plus benefits if they pass a nine-step qualification process which starts with an online 'pre-screening' and ends with an eight-week 'foundation agent-handling course'.

MI5 is recruiting intelligence officers whose job will be to convince extremists to spy for them instead of joining ISIS in Iraq and Syria (pictured)

Hundreds of Britons including former medical student Nasser Muthana (centre) - who was recently reported as killed - are fighting alongside ISIS

Handlers will learn how to 'elicit information and deploy persuasion and negotiation to find the truth and gain... life-saving intelligence', according to adverts which will appear on their site this week.

A senior MI5 manager has said: 'The recruitment of agents is driven by leads — from among those people we have an interest in, of which there are several thousand.'

They added that handlers could also help deal with threats posed by terrorists in Northern Ireland, foreign spies and cybercriminals, according to the Times.

The preconception that all spies are young Oxbridge graduates is a myth, according to MI5 who also claim they do not care about applicants' education, career background or age.

They are however interested in multilingual candidates who can speak Arabic, Russian, Chinese or Urdu.

The ability to distinguish between fact and comment when assessing intelligence is a key attribute, MI5 has said.

Successful candidates will receive £41,900 salary plus benefits to convince extremists (pictured in Syria) to provide vital information for the security services

The senior manager said all potential informants will be thoroughly vetted before an initial approach by a handler is approved, to make sure they will not turn out to be double-agents.

They said: 'We put a lot of effort in choosing who we initially approach and then validating the information they provide.

'This is both for the safety of the case officers and to make sure that the intelligence is accurate. Anyone being monitored by MI5 presents a potential threat to national security.