Or do i have to level it myself. How do followers work anyway.

You have to level it yourself. All a follower does is fallow you around, carry some of your items, and attack with you, nothing more.

Dont forget 'get in the way' and 'die frequently whilst in the way'

That depends on if your careful or not. If you are an archer, you should probably have an archer or mage companion so they don't run up and get in the way. If your Magic, give them 100% resistance to what ever element you use most frequently so you can use dangerous spells without needing to be careful. And if your melee almost any follower will work fine, still preferably a ranged one though.

hehe thanks guys. Too bad. A "wife" follower with a supply of poisons and, ofc, other potions too would be cool.

As an archer, it really is important, to get the Eagle eye and Steady hand perks.
Sure a follower can get in the way, but the collision detection is not that bad so at 50% (slow) time, you have to be pretty bad to still hit your follower.
Also with a good follower that has been reset to your level and apprioately equiped, it's rare you actually need to do that much combat.

It is a shame that even that some NPC have skills in certain areas, you can't make use of them. It would certainly make it more useful to use them for this.

Think it's limited mostly to opening doors and chests. Where an element of skill be required.

Aela likes to play with the alchemy sets in our houses, usually in the middle of the night. She especially enjoys milling things. However, there are no fruits from her labors. I once found her at the arcane enchanter in Vlindrel Hall. She was doing the "laying on of hands" thing, probably from seeing me do the same, but again with no results. I tried to get her to pick a lock, but she said, "Nope. Not gonna happen." Mind you, it was a private residence.

Dirty minded me, if I saw her laying her hands on the enchanting table, I'd think she was asking me to do something.