How can I find my followers skills and stats?

Followers are generally given a set of skills that will improve, regardless of what you equip them with. These will improve with level, but nothing else will. Faendal is always going to do better with bows than with a greatsword, for example.

To this end, the official strategy guide states:

• Sven's skills are alchemy, enchanting, smithing, and archery
• Lydia's skills are in one-handed, heavy armor, archery, and block; not sneak

It's not clear where the rumor that Lydia would make an excellent thief started: UESP mentions she has the sneak skill on the list of followers (I suspect that's where Wikia pulled the information), but her wiki page clearly marks her as a warrior (the correct designation). Nothing about her says "stealthy": she starts with a sword and board and tells you over and over that she's there to protect you.

While the official strategy guide does list what each follower's skill is, with the exception of Lydia, UESP's version matches up with the strategy guide, so it should be pretty accurate to determine what skills your follower has.

But if you wanted to do it without consulting a guide or a wiki, it's generally common sense and usually based on what equipment they come with. Lydia comes with a sword and shield, so her skills are one-handed and block; Faedrun comes with a bow, so one of his skills is archery; and so on.

All followers have different stats that are determined by their level. Their level is fixed as soon as you enter the zone and the NPC is loaded. Once that happens, you cannot change their proficiencies without the console.

To find out exactly what the stats of the follower has, you have to perform a series of console commands:

1. Move up to the NPC you want to query.
2. Open up the console and click on them. There should be a small text string that shows up in the console, that is their unique ID.
3. Start querying their stats via the command getav. For example:
   • getav health shows you their health
   • getav sneak shows you their sneak ability
4. You can use the command: showinventory to see what their default armors are, even if it doesn't show up when you ask them to open their inventory in the dialog menu.

If you ever wish to 'level up' your follower since you have leveled after meeting them:

1. Remove all gear from their inventory (at least ones that you don't want to be blown away.)
2. Select them via the console again
3. use the console command: disable
4. use the console command: enable

After this, the follower should be scaled to what your character's level is.

Most followers in Skyrim favor certain skills over others. For example, Aela typically has high marksmanship, light armor, and sneak. However, her default armor is heavy armor, so it helps her survivability a lot if you give her light armor to replace her default armor.