The tradesperson is asking me to pay them directly in cash. Is this okay?

No — and payment should stay on Trady. If a tradesperson asks you to pay outside the platform, please report it to us at hello@gettrady.co.uk with a screenshot of the request. If you pay outside the platform, the job sits outside Trady's escrow, the verification record we hold, and our dispute mediation — so you can't raise a Trady dispute over a payment we never processed, and there's no Trady record of the transaction if something goes wrong.