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

No — payment should stay on Get 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. Pay outside the platform and the job sits outside the escrow Stripe holds your payment in, the verification record we hold, and our dispute mediation — so you can't raise a Get Trady dispute over a payment that never went through the platform, and there's no Get Trady record of it if something goes wrong.