I'm unsure whether followers get skillups on level, or progress in skills naturally. Any clarification on this?

My understanding is that they are level locked when you first meet them.

If you are on PC, select them in console, then type

disable

and then

enable

and they will sort of despawn and respawn. When they respawn, their level will be recalibrated to fit yours.

That's what I've read; I haven't confirmed any of this personally.

Thanks for that info, but what I really want to know is: Do followers get skillups as a result of using skills, or is it something which is updated when followers level?

Btw followers do level, it's just that some of them are broken and their health/magicka/endurance values dont increase properly. That's what i heard at least.

They are showing level, skill and HP increases for me since 1.2, unlike 1.1 where they were stuck (unless above workaround used).

This does not apply to all though, Lydia and Argis are, Sven seems stuck at level 20.

Edit: Just to confirrm I check Lydia's Heavy Armor and Block skills on lvl 37 & 47 saves, and they had increased.

Without CK I can't tell you.
In OB they do get a certain amount of skillpoints per major skills. (2 skillpoints on each major skill per levelup, IIRC.). I am pretty sure this si true in Skyrim, too. NPCs still have classes which determine what skill they should use and if they shoudl focus on HP, Stam or Magicka.

Fist you need to dismiss the follower and read a message; then open the console, select him/her and type enable/disable. To check if it worked you can use the command "getav health" to check his/her life points before and after the procedure.

@OP, I don't know about their skills, I know followers level up, eventhough their stats don't. To update those you need the procedure I've written.

oblivion had followers?

I can only think of the DB followers and they were rubbish.

Hey this is great info thanks. The main reason I'm asking is because of Lydia.

Btw why are Lydia, Argis and Sven all at level 20 do you think? Are they level capped there, or did you just happen to meet (spawn) them all at level 20?

Hmm so you think they level independent from the player, rather than their level updating to match the player as he advances.

Lydia & Argis were level 37 and 47 matching the level of the characters of those saves, only Sven was stuck at 20.

This is awesome news thanks, I was planning to wait til level 40-50 til picking up Lydia.

Console command didn't work for me.

No, they gain a level each time you gain a level. For each level gain the game adds skillpoints to each skill based on their class.

Ah? Since when Oblivion had Followers? Only quest related but not proper followers like in Skyrim.

Check the Companion section on Tesnexus.

My personal guess is, since Skyrim has a min/max level based on location (cave X is a lowbie cave with levels between 1-10), that the bug that a follower won't level up and you have to dis/enable him is related to this max level based on location.