As a level 20 dark elf arch- mage with a companion and killer spells, I don't get killed much. But... My progress upwards is taking hours. So much so that I've ditched my spells and am using a big f0ck-0ff sword in two-handed which seems to gain me more points, albeit in a single skill.

Any tips anyone for getting better, quicker ?

try leveling skills that you havent really touched, what I find is that leveling starts taking longer once I get 70-100 in the skills I most commonly use

ways to get round this would be to

• level easy-to-level skills such as sneak, speech, block and smithing
  
• try a different combat technique, for mages this may be using more of a different class of spells, for archers maybe alchemise more poisons, for warriors switch from 1-handed to 2-handed or vise versa
  
• use the skills that you havent touched, for me this was enchanting and pick pocketing

Try this out, this should keep you going until the 50s at least

Typically it is actually better to stay at low levels so the enemies stay weaker.

But to answer your question using armor while fighting grows that skill at the same time as your weapon. you can throw in some sneak attacks to level sneak as well.

On both of my characters I was at 20 before I really ventured out. I ground Smithing to 100, I Sneak a lot (even on my Heavy Armor warrior type), pick a lot of locks, always attempt speech checks, switch to 2-H if you want to just get some levels, use a shield on bears (giants if you're strong enough) without attacking back, wear armor and let a less dangerous enemy attack you, spam Muffle (you don't even have to wait for the previous cast to expire), pay trainers for Enchanting, and, of course, there's always the evil Oghma Infinium.

Leveling is incredibly fast in the beginning. And leveling slows down a lot as you level up. This is entirely normal for all RPGs. Level 20 is still early. I would continue to concentrate on your core battle skills until you are stronger. I would not recommend pursuing hobby skills at level 20. You are still weak at level 20. Invest mostly in skill that will help you survive. My advice is not to pay attention to the rate of leveling up.

What skills are you specializing in? Why do you want skills to go up? Do you have some perks that you want to get but don't have perk points?

Let me look at my save files to tell you how long it took to level up.

Level 16 20 hours: 1.25 level per hour
Level 19 25 hours: 0.6 level per hour
Level 20 32 hours: 0.14 level per hour
Level 24 36 hours: 1 level per hour
Level 25 42 hours: 0.16 level per hour
Level 28 48 hours: 0.5 level per hour
Level 30 65 hours: 0.11 level per hour
Level 31 66 hours: 1 level per hour
Level 33 71 hours: 0.4 level per hour
Level 36 91 hours: 0.15 level per hour
Level 42 97 hours: 0.66 level per hour
Level 44 114 hours: 0.11 level per hour
Level 46 121 hours: 0.28 level per hour
Level 47 124 hours: 0.33 level per hour